


Cross-Reference

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon, Implied Brian Kinney/Michael Novotny (Queer as Folk), Season/Series 02, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-29
Updated: 2004-12-21
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:54:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin's sure about one thing, learning to speak fluent Kinney-ese takes a lot of cross-referencing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Author’s Note: My very first QAF fic. I promised myself I wouldn’t but after watching all 4 seasons…I just couldn’t help it. Feedback is deeply appreciated. Also, looking for a beta familiar with the show. Any takers?

* * *

QAF episode 110: 

B: When he comes, does he run to the shower, or does he…lay there and hold you tight, all wet and sticky. 

M: He lays there and holds me, all wet and sticky. 

B: I guess he does love you. 

Episode 215: 

J: All this time I’ve been fooling myself, thinking he loves me 

M: He does love you.

M: You saw his face this morning, we could have removed his teeth with pliers and he would have let us. 

***+++***

Justin’s been there through a lot of shit, a _lot_ of shit. And he thinks its pretty fair to say that he’s handled it all well. For the most part. A minimum of queening out, the appropriate amount of push and pull, he’s been pretty damn mature about this, if he does say so himself. Shit, he’s been through Brian of the "one fuck only, what are you doing here little stalker boy" and Brian of the "pissing on Justin’s one true passion is how I express my inner turmoil" even Brian of the "deep and tongue-filled kisses with my so called best friend in front of my non-boyfriend just because I can and the little twat can’t stop me." And he’s stayed, and he’s tried to make it work, and he’s shifted through the layers upon _layers_ of uber crap Brian dishes because he sees so much more beneath it. 

And because, frankly, for all his in your face blunt honesty…

Brian’s a liar. Brian’s a big fat phony liar – bigfatphonyliar—and Justin often wonders why he’s the only one who can see it. 

No apologies, no excuses, no regrets his lilywhite ass. ‘Sorry is bullshit’ is just another way of saying, "I’m going to fuck up, and you’re just going to have to accept it. Over and Over and Over again." And _that_ is bullshit. 

He can’t say "I love you" but he can say, "I love to fuck you". Not because he doesn’t feel the former emotion, but because he’s too damn chicken-shit to admit he feels it. 

Except, of course, when he _can_ say I love you, "Always have, always will" but that’s always been ‘either’, ‘or’, _**never**_ ‘and.’

Brian’s never made him any promises but Justin’s assumed – hoped, wished ‘if not for me than for nobody’ – that that’s the way it was always going to be. Can’t say ‘I love you’ along with ‘I love to fuck you.’ 

Somewhere though, somewhere deep down he’s known it would happen eventually. 

He’s known. Because Brian’s a big fat phony liar who pummels over his own rules on a daily basis, shows one face while feeling another, resists manipulations and advice from everyone and yet folds faster than … a really fast…folding…thing, Fuck! He can’t think of analogies at a time like this. 

The man boasts about being his own leader, traveling to the beat of his own drum (such as it is), and not giving a damn about anyone, but when shit gets bad, when the envelope really gets pushed, when a member of his ‘family’ asks him to jump, he replies ‘how fucking high’ … And that, that, is why Justin has stayed through all of it. When the time came Brian always asked how high. 

Okay, so there’s usually a ‘you miserable, pathetic, piece of shit’ tacked on the end, but the point is he does it. 

The only problem was, and he hadn’t counted on this, Justin knew, he just knew one day someone (one particular someone) would get off his ass and demand both ‘I love you’ and ‘I love to fuck you’. 

So when it finally does happen on a Wednesday, all Justin can do is sit there, thoughts oddly jumping from ‘that was surprisingly anti-climatic’ to ‘I can’t believe he actually went through with it.’ Justin doesn’t even know which ‘he,’ he’s referring to anymore. Them both, probably. 

He’s not surprised that it’s a Wednesday. He’s always despised them, the way they sit there in the middle of the week, all smug and self-important and cold, equidistant from the beginning as the end. 

It wouldn’t make as much sense if it happened on any other day. Because their relationship…such as it is…is at an impasse. Not starting, not exactly ending…just stuck for a moment, and Justin doesn’t know what to do. 

He loves Brian. He really does. He loves the way his face scrunches up in disgust when someone does something he finds particularly distasteful, loves his playful moods, his high as a kite without the man-made stimulants moods, he even loves his high as a kite from illegal Tijuanan shit juggling socks and fruit and pillows mood. He loves how Brian always does the right thing in the end, and usually doesn’t stray so far from "the right thing" nor wanders too long. He loves his little boy pout, his confident strut, his tongue in cheek smirk, his nervous habit of pulling his lips into his mouth and getting that tiny wrinkle between his brows. He loves how protective he is, the way he can wrap Justin in his arms and block everything out but him, loves his dry humor and his wet humor and his playful humor, he loves him so much. 

He just doesn’t know if love’s enough to overcome this. 

Or. No. He’s not sure if he wants to try anymore. 

Its not so much Brian’s fucked another man, because please, Brian’s pretty much fucked _everyone_. (One times 365 days -- 66 on each leap year -- times ten years plus threesomes and foursomes and orgies times a minimum of two sessions a day times never the same trick twice and…. Fuck, he’s an artist not a mathematician but he did get a 770 on his math section of the SATs.) 

Justin doesn’t mind so much anymore. Or at least he doesn’t take it as a personal slight when Brian fucks around. He can’t say he’ll never mind because no matter what Brian says or how after-school special it sounds (if Gay as Blazes was produced by Turner Classic) the only safe sex is sex where you’re both party A and B -- and in Brian’s case parties C through F as well. Even if there were no such thing as broken condoms and floating so high you couldn’t land long enough to scoop one up, there were still such things as violent tricks, tricks in high places, sexual harassment suits, stalkers that weren’t so cute and so non-threatening as Justin …

Hell, the profile of the average serial killer was a twenty-thirty year old unattached white male, Brian’s fuck base of choice... or at least frequency. Of course Justin minded, of _course_ he fucking worried, but that’s not why he’s (pissed-shocked-hurt-betrayed-feeling violent and vulnerable) upset right now. 

It’s not even so much _who_ he fucked. 

Brian’s pretty indiscriminant regarding his tricks on normal days; throw in one of the alphabet drugs and some liquor of the harder variety and if it has a dick, the only things he won’t do are animals, kids, corpses, bodily liquids, and, oh yeah, bottom. 

Except the latter, for Justin. But can he even trust that anymore? 

It’s the fact those two sentiments were combined together that hurts. The fact Brian had no right to take that away, to give it to someone who didn’t fucking deserve it. 

It’s the fact Justin might have broken his own rules by kissing that frat boy, but Brian insisted it didn’t matter and then went out and trampled the shitty things in one fell swoop. He wasn’t there but he knows Brian, and he knows that whiny little obsessive ‘Brian’s my best friend, Brian’s my best friend’ can’t let go of his mama’s apron string long enough to get a life short backstabbing bastard-ass-all-I-have-is-a-high-school-diploma-because-emotionally-I’m-still-in-high-school "hereallylovesyouJustinwhenhe’snotfeelingdepressiveguilt"…

The muscle’s in Justin’s right hand begin to jerk involuntarily as he clenches it hard into a fist. 

He knows him and he knows Brian, and he knows all it would take is one look at those pathetic brown eyes and he’d crumble. If he fucked him, he kissed him, he held him, he was gentle with him. And they sure as hell know each other’s names, he’s stayed out past three many times with him because that "didn’t count". So what’s left? Not doing it twice? Jesus Christ.

Jesus _Fucking_ Christ. 

What if they did it again? What if they plan on doing it again. What if they want to do it now? 

The last thought is enough to break him out of his self-imposed (Kinney-imposed) state of stasis. And it’s like all the time he’s wasted staring blankly at the loft floors has suddenly caught up with him and he’s moving fast. Tearing through the dresser drawers, grabbing up sketchpads, pulling out his long neglected duffel bag, and packing, packing, packing. 

How the hell did he acquire so much _shit_? 

Somewhere in his subconscious he’s aware that the shower shuts off, and that Brian suddenly appears, clad only in a towel, water still dripping down his chest and slicking his hair back damp to his forehead. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Brian’s voice comes from behind Justin, and for once it’s honestly confused, not that infuriating false innocence ‘I know what you mean but I’m going to pretend I don’t anyway’ he typically sported. Especially when Justin tried to call him on his shit. He’s not angry, Brian isn’t, his voice is still light and wondering, still in that sweet lazy mood, like melting cotton candy around your tongue. He doesn’t quite realize anything is wrong yet, doesn’t understand what’s happening, so he can afford to be light and fluffy and …and…and _curious_! While Justin is just breaking. The. Fuck. Apart. 

Justin slows his frantic efforts because apparently you can’t hyperventilate and pack at the same time. He utilizes his anti-panic attack methods from after the bashing, and takes deep deep breaths. By the time he answers he’s very proud of his assumed calm, although he has a feeling that maybe the shock just hasn’t fully worn off yet. 

"I think," Justin says serenely, "it would be best if I stay at…" Where? Where could he go? Daphne’s (in that crowded college-student slum she called an apartment, complete with two other female roommates), Mom’s (yeah, run back to mommy so she can rhapsodize on and on about how she was so right), Debbie’s (he is not seventeen anymore, he is not going to back track), Emmett’s (oh god no), Lindsay and Melanie’s (two munchers and a munchkin, perfect), Ted’s… 

"Fuck! I don’t know, somewhere else for awhile." Oh look. There went calm. He’s never had one a day in his life but he’s pretty sure he’s getting an asthma attack. Either that or his lungs are trying to flee before his tear ducts kick in and the real humiliation starts. 

"Alright," Brian says slowly. God, he’s amused. How can he be amused? How _dare_ he be amused? "I’ll bite. Why would it be best if you stayed ‘Fuck, you don’t know, somewhere else for awhile’."

"Michael called." 

"So? Mikey always calls. If it wasn’t for me and the phone Mikey’s pathetic excuse for a life would be too boring to bear." 

He’s moving closer as he speaks, in slow increments, approaching Justin like he’s this frightened deer that will bolt with the slightest provocation. Not like his typical intimidation techniques, Brian’s using his body to box him in this time, not push him away. Which just…Pisses Justin off even more. 

"He told me, Brian," Justin says flatly. 

Finally a pause. Hesitation. Justin doesn’t look up, so he has to feel Brian’s indecision not see it. And he does, he can feel Brian halt, he can feel the instant Brian realizes what’s going on, finally gets it. And then he can feel the instant Brian decides to play it off. Pretend he doesn’t get it, pretend nothing’s the matter, pretend Justin’s whole world and all the stupid illusions he’s made himself believe didn’t just crumble to the wayside. Justin doesn’t know what he was expecting, but fuck if this is it. 

"Told you what? Gayopolis is having a half-off sale for all the good little superheroes that could and you’re invited? 

"No. He told me you slept with him. He said he couldn’t hide it from Ben anymore and he didn’t want me to have to hear it from anyone else. He said it was after you came back from the White Party but before we started the comic. He said you came to the shop one night and it just happened." Justin stops babbling, stops packing, stops freaking out, just stops everything and looks up at Brian. Faces him for the first time since Michael’s phone call, and says so very calmly, "tell me he was lying, Brian." 

Order, Request, Plea…all of that and more, interwoven into each syllable of each word, and Brian is silent. Pulls his lips into his mouth in that little boy look that just erases ten years, and shifts his gaze to the right and down. 

He knew. He knew when Michael told him, thickly, with tears in his voice, that he wasn’t lying, but somehow it took that look that silence before he really knew. And if only Brian had said "he’s lying" straight face or not, Justin thinks he wouldn’t have doubted. He’d make himself believe. How fucked is that? 

Justin pulls at his left ear, then runs both hands through his hair, over his face, rubs his neck. Nothing helps, he’s going out of his skin, he can feel it tight and prickly, like he’s seconds away from bursting out. Then they’ll be nothing left of him but a puddle of burst Justin entrails, Brain would have finally split him open in every sense possible. They’ve been telling him that Brian wasn’t good for his health since day one, but Justin’s always assumed they meant it would be crabs or something that did him in.

That’s not funny, that’s really not funny, God, he’s a step away from hysteria. 

"Right," he says, a little too loudly, "which is why I have to be somewhere else for awhile." 

He moves from the bedroom closet out into the living room, picking up any random piece of ‘hisness’ he can find. All the random shit he’s acquired within the past few months he’s lived with Brian along with the basics. Sketch books go, a flyer someone gave him for some frat party he has no intention of attending goes, even a couple packets of ketchup he’d taken from the diner because Brian always conveniently forgets to pick up a bottle of the stuff when he’s at the market – they all get shoved into his duffle bag in one great big jumbled mess. 

"It didn’t mean anything," Brian says, following him across the room. "In fact, I barely even remember it."

Justin remembers those words from another incident, and wonders numbly how many times is Brian going to have to pull the figurative rug out from under his feet before he finally gets it? Whatever Brian feels for him, it’s not love, it’s definitely not respect, hell, it’s barely even _like_. You don’t do this type of shit to people you care about. You just don’t. 

Justin turns back towards the bedroom, wondering if he should retrieve that box of condoms he bought. Technically it was meant for them both but why should he leave Brian means to go back and fuck Michael again? Let him get his own condoms. 

"It was a one time thing that just…" Justin snorts to himself, and even Brian trails off in silent acknowledgement of the complete lameness of that argument. 

"Okay, maybe I fucked up. But it didn’t mean anything, Justin." 

Condoms in the bag, onto the bathroom. 

"So. What? You’re just going to give me the silent treatment?" 

Toothbrush in the bag. Bye bye aftershave. Wait. No. That’s Brian’s aftershave. He doesn’t even have his own friggin’ _aftershave_? How pathetic is that? And where the hell is his shampoo? 

"Will you quit acting like some nelly queen. You’re not going anywhere. Put your shit back." There’s a note of irritation in Brian’s voice now; how quickly he’s moved from abject shame to defensive anger. Bastard. Immoral, Michael Boning Bastard. 

He doesn’t really have anymore toiletries so onto the bedroom again. What subsists as a bedroom anyway, the whole loft isn’t anything but one giant open space, there are no rooms. Which makes Justin feel especially exposed in only his boxer briefs, clutching the last few years of his life in both hands. He needs to get dressed so he can get out of here. Why the hell couldn’t Michael have called before Justin was in bed? 

"Justin, I’m not kidding, stop fucking around and put your shit back." The note of irritation has ascended to a full-blown chord. _Fucking_ bastard. The fucking bastard who fucked…inappropriately. Like he has a right to be pissed off?

It doesn’t matter, it didn’t _mean anything_ , he says. It was goddamn Michael, how could it not? How dare he stand there and say that meaningless shit. He slept with his best friend. The same best friend who’s been in love with him for the past…seventeen years, however the fuck long the count is now. The best friend Brian goes to whenever life gets a little hard, the one who’s seen him through puberty, and college, and tears, and abusive parents, and God knows what else. He slept with him, and now Brian has the sheer _gall_ to tell Justin it didn’t _mean anything_? What the fuck? 

Where the _hell_ are his fucking _pants_? 

"It was just another fuck, Justin. He was complaining about how I did it with Ben and…it just happened, alright? I gave it to him like he’s been wanting, but it was just a fuck." 

Justin picks up another article of clothing he’s missed and stuffs it into his bag as a response, then heads for the bedroom. 

"Will you stop packing!" Despite the pleading nature inherent in the structure of that sentence, there’s nothing pleading about it: Brian bellows it like an order, and without looking Justin knows the muscle in his jaw is working overtime. Good. "Christ, Justin. How the fuck am I supposed to talk to you over the crescendo of fucking noise as you shovel your shit in that godforsaken butt-ugly camping pack? Look, just sit down somewhere for a second. Take a deep breath and stop acting like Justin Taylor: Twat Princess." 

Twat Princess. Cute. Fuck Him.

Justin is continuing to ignore him. Justin is _going_ to continue to ignore him. In fact, he’ll never acknowledge Brian again, or for, oh, the next five years at least. Whereupon he’ll casually bump into him during an art exhibit fabulously successful and madly in love with a rich Italian model who wrote love sonnets during his spare time and…who…who had a gigantic cock. ‘Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. Mr…Kinney, was it? Bart or something, right?’ Take that you backstabbing Michael-fucker. Ha!

Justin attempts to brush by him, head angled down so he doesn’t even have to look at the pathetic shit. 

Except Brian is suddenly there, in his face, yanking Justin’s duffel out of his surprised hands. And funny, but as Brian is taking it away it really doesn’t seem like all that much anymore. It’s just one pitiful bag. Shouldn’t he have more? It’s been like two years, shouldn’t he have more stuff, more of himself here? And if not here, then where is it all? 

Not at Debbie’s, that’s Michae—pardon "wittle Mikey’s" place, his space. He could barely put new sheets on the mattress without Michael blowing a gasket, muchless storing his things there long term. Not at his mother’s, that hasn’t been his house since he moved out the first time. So where—Fuck that, that’s not important. 

"What are you doing? Give me back my bag, Brian." 

"So the princess _can_ speak. I was beginning to wonder." 

"Brian, give me back my bag." It takes effort, a lot of effort on his part to refrain from clawing out his non-boyfriend’s smug self-satisfied _cheating_ eyes. He won’t do it. He won’t. He won’t turn into every gay cliché that ever existed and scream and rave and kick him in the shin while bitch slapping him. He is not some silly little whiny faggot. 

"No." Brian recedes a few steps, jaw line stubborn, and Justin is forced to follow. "Not until you agree to sit down and talk to me. You’re always going on and on about how I never talk to you, guess what, Sunshine, now’s your chance."

Oh Such _**Bull**_ shit. Justin has never demanded a goddamn thing from Brian. Except for the rules, that’s it. He’s given all of himself, and taken what he could get, and read into each and every little fragment of emotion Brian has ever so generously felt benevolent enough to siphon out. Justin hasn’t asked for a single thing; in fact, his mantra for the past few years has been: "I don’t want you to change. I love you how you are." So fuck you very much, Kinney. 

Justin scowls hard, and sends a withering glare Brian’s way. "I’m never going on and on about how you never talk to me." 

"Yeah, well, the wounded lamb looks sure as hell are saying something." 

"Look, this is ridiculous, think what you want. Just give me back my bag and I’ll get out of your way, all right? That’s obviously what you want. Can we just do that?" 

Justin makes a grab for it but Brian yanks his arm back too fast and Justin ends up looking like a fool, half falling over himself to clutch at empty air. This is seriously really pissing him off. 

Brian recedes a few more steps and mockingly challenges Justin to try again with a grandiose wave of his arm like he’s some Spanish matador. "That’s just so like you," Brian spits. "Shit stops going your way and you take off, and then blame me for it. Big Bad Brian hurt my wittle feewings, he won’t talk to me, he doesn’t want me around. Well, fuck that! Show some balls for once and fucking stick it out." 

The nerve, the pure GALL. The Fucking Fuckity Fuck Fuck of Brian’s warped- - twisted— The Pure! How _Dare_ \--

"You fucked Michael, Brian! You. Fucked. Michael! You didn’t just stop talking to me, you shoved your _fucking_ dick up _Michael’s_ ass and _fucked_ him! I can’t just forget that, file it away under the list of things you’ve done but we won’t discuss and I won’t say has hurt me. Now give me my fucking bag back, you insensitive piece of _shit_!"

Justin’s lurch towards his duffel is desperate this time. He’s dressed only in boxer-briefs, his entire top half is flushed red from anger and the chill of the loft, his hair is a wild mess, and now he’s flying at Brian (who himself is only clothed in a towel, rivulets of water still dripping from his body) like a crazy person and Justin honestly doesn’t know how he gets himself into situations like this. His life was never full of all this drama before Brian. He’s pretty sure. 

Brian pulls away before Justin can get a good grip on anything, and the next second Brian is slamming the living room window open and unceremoniously dumping all of Justin’s carefully collected shit…outside. Onto the concrete below. Out. The. Fucking. Window. 

Pause. Stop. Slow motion. Something. He needs a break. He needs to sit down and just…take a moment. Because that didn’t just happen. 

Justin cannot believe Brian has just done that. No, really, he can’t believe it. He just stands there staring blankly at the open window through which his bag has just sailed, and he can’t …believe it. 

All his worldly possessions. Gone. 

Curiously so is his anger. Justin has nothing left but stunned disbelief. 

And Brian…Brian is also staring out the window with a mildly shocked expression on his face, which consists mostly of an open mouth stare, tongue lifted and pressing teeth, eyes gone all glittery golden hazel. 

Justin hates that look because he can’t resist it. Nothing makes him want to jump Brian faster than that look, that vulnerable ‘I don’t know what to do now’ lost little boy look. 

Brian’s lower lip is wet and full, flushed rose red, and even angrier than he’s ever been for quite awhile, Justin has to look away to keep from imagining sucking it into his mouth. Old habits die a slow, hard death. 

Justin treads over to the couch and sinks down into it. He doesn’t even have the energy to find humor in the irony of this situation. Brian (he of ‘this is only temporary’ and ‘my place isn’t big enough for the two of us’ and ‘get the fuck out’) has just thrown all of Justin’s things out the window…in order to get him to stay. And now Justin wants to ‘ride him till the cows come home’ because he looked so vulnerable after the deed was done. His life…his life could be a fucking five-act play except no one would believe it was a realistic portrayal of an actual relationship. 

Justin sighs and looks at his hands. He should go get something to wear. He’s shivering now and goosebumps have officially taken over his body. He just doesn’t feel like moving. Ever again. He’ll just sit here and contract pneumonia in both lungs until he shivers and hacks his way to death, expiring messily all over Brian’s precious sofa. Explain that stain to your cleaning lady. Better yet, explain it to Deb and Mom. 

He hears Brian pad out the room but he doesn’t turn to look, doesn’t do much of anything. 

He isn’t really shocked when he feels warmth draped around his shoulders in the form of Brian’s 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. Nor is he surprised that Brian chose the sheet over the duvet. 

Justin pulls it tighter around his body and refuses to look up in gratitude. He feels Brian hovering over him warily, that look probably still plastered on his face, for one of the few times in his life actually uncertain. 

_So_ fuck him. 

"You want to talk," Justin’s voice is hoarse though he hasn’t really been screaming, and he speaks in a hushed decibel as if he’s uttering a prayer of reverence and not just about to break up with the only man he’s ever loved. The one man he’s admired, and wanted, and changed all his stupid naïve life ideals for. They think Brian has modified his life for him? Please. He has nothing on the contortions Justin underwent in order to appease him. Casual multi-partner sex left and right though he’s believed in monogamy ever since he could remember, all his mom’s ‘Just say no’ anti-drug programming bypassed, risking an allergic reaction every time he inhales some shit Anita cooked up, ignoring every single put down (the teenage stalker, the trick who stayed too long, the fanbase of one, how can you stand to even look me in the face) to persistently just have some of Brian’s time. Swallowing his pain along with his pride. Okay, fine, some of it was fun. There was a thrill to the life they led together, the tricking, the clubbing…and the rest he only has himself to blame. In all honesty there were more good days than bad. But that didn’t give him a right to just…jack up the bad by a power of five. To just go out and fuck _Michael_. 

"Fine, then tell me something, Brian. When you pissed all over my art, _all_ over my art. …was it because you were jealous because you thought I wanted Michael? Or because you thought Michael wanted me?" 

There’s that hesitation again, the pause where Brian goes so still his slight wheeze, because of his deviated septum, can actually be heard. Then he’s sliding around the front of the couch, bumping against Justin with shoulders and thighs, the towel that’s hung on so precariously (miraculously) all through their earlier conniptions finally falling apart to reveal his mostly dry, lower body. It’s habit (mostly) that causes Justin’s heart rate to skip, then speed up, the flush to start low in his abdomen and spread to his swelling penis. Knowing Brian it’s probably deliberate; seduction as distraction. 

"That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard." Brian’s voice has lost all it’s un-righteous anger and is equally as hushed as Justin’s. He reaches out and runs his warm palm down the side of Justin’s face, slowly down his neck, down his chest. He slides closer, thighs spreading slowly to reveal balls reclining heavily between them. 

"That’s not an answer." 

Justin could easily turn him down; even now with his cock stiffening rapidly and raising its own salute. He’s turned him down before, he’s never been so far gone that anger (hurt-betrayal-embarrassment) can’t override lust. 

He’s not sure if he wants to turn him down though, and he knows Brian reads it in his eyes. If this is to be their last time together then he kind of wants to feel Brian inside him. Maybe…maybe even ride Michael out of his system. Out of both of them. 

Brain’s eyes go soft like they do sometimes when he thinks Justin has done something particularly … well, the word ‘cute’ comes to mind, but Brian would probably call it bratty. Or perhaps twatish. Only his jaw is still doing it’s sad repentance thing, so maybe it’s less ‘ I find you really adorable right now’ and more ‘I want you to find me really adorable right now…so I can fuck you.’ 

"You already know the answer, Justin. Why do you need me to answer a question you already know the answer to?" 

"Maybe I don’t know the---" Brian cuts him off with his mouth, opens wide and covers Justin’s in a hot wet suction, tongue expertly slipping in to caress Justin’s, entice him to come out and play, no preamble. 

Justin allows it for a little, moans into Brian’s mouth, returns it with his own twisting, caressing, kiss. It feels good. It’s wonderful. Sex isn’t their problem, they could write a best-seller on the subject. 

Brian takes the opportunity to divest Justin of his underpants; Justin doesn’t stop him; he wants this too. 

When they break away he presses his question, and also his naked cock (against Brian’s abdomen). 

"Why can’t you just answer it? Why does this have to be a fight, Brian? If it’s so dumb just answer it." 

The non-boyfriend in question doesn’t stop trailing wet kiss down his stomach. Down. Down. 

"Bri-- Brian."

The tip of his tongue dances across the head of Justin’s dick, Justin’ hard throbbing dick flushed bright red. Spit mixing with precum while one hand fondles a condom and lube out of apparent thin air (but which is probably more like under a sofa cushion) and the other teases Justin’s hole. Justin doesn’t know why they still bother with condoms when they cum in each other’s mouths and scoff at dental dams. But…only with each other, never with tricks. 

What did Michael get? Was it the same for him? 

"Answer it," he demands breathlessly when Brian comes up for air. 

"You already know the answer." 

"Why can’t you just say it?" 

With a consistent slow pressure Brian pushes Justin back into the sofa, nudges his legs up, thighs spread wide and open exposing him, all in one smooth practiced motion. 

He rips the condom package open with his teeth, rolls it over his erection, leans over with a careful deliberation and eases himself into Justin’s body, one hand guiding, the other holding Justin steady. God. Yes. Like that. 

Fully sheathed he leans all the way over until Justin’s cock is trapped between their bodies, Brian’s arms wrapping around him firmly, everything flush and touching, so close he’s _breathing_ into him. "Why do you need to hear it," he asks, so close, so very close Justin hears the words like they’re coming from inside his own head. 

Then he lurches forward and thrusts deep. 

There’s not too much talking after that, just panting and moaning and those slick wet slurping sounds that accompany really good messy kisses. 

When Brian intends to distract, he really puts everything in it. And though he was adamant about not answering, he does that too. 

Every touch, every caress, every nuzzle into his neck and tongue lick down his chest, says, "it was you, not Michael, you." But why can’t he just vocalize it? Why can’t he put it into words Justin can hear? Why does Justin always have to guess?

It starts slow but by the time Brian’s climax hits it’s hard and it’s fast and it’s desperate. But mostly it’s intense. Though sex with Brian is usually intense on a variation of levels. Hell, not too many activities with Brian were anything but intense on a variation of levels. But maybe, maybe now is not the time to analyze this. Later when he can have a complete thought without – God! 

Not terribly much longer after, Justin cums. Goaded on by Brian’s muscles stiffening, Brian’s back arching, Brian’s hips jutting forward ramming his cock deeper, holding it there, pressing into Justin’s body, Brian’s thighs trembling, Brian’s ass clenching…Brian coming inside of him. Coming because of him. Oh God, that never stops being good. 

Justin’s eyes roll back in his head and all he can squeeze out his throat is an agonized half-whine half-grunt of pure pleasure, tearing between clenched teeth. The world doesn’t black out exactly but for a few moments it does go blurry. 

When it swirls back into focus, Brian has finished and is sliding carefully out of him; Justin has to force himself to let him go though the urge to close his legs, hold Brian inside him forever…it’s pretty strong. He watches as the condom is stripped and tied off efficiently, wrapped in Brian’s discarded towel and placed on the floor. 

Kind of presumptuous. He must be planning on lying down with him, otherwise he’d just go throw the thing away. 

Once he’s done, Brian just sort of sits there. Not awkwardly precisely, but attentive. He’s waiting. For what? For Justin to make a move? For a tall brunet to descend from the heaven’s with a time-machine so he can go back and make sure Justin never answered that call? 

Justin wants to get up, wrap himself in his discarded clothing, and…just get the fuck out of there. It would be the easiest thing to do in a way, probably the single hardest and single easiest thing he’s ever had to do in his life. Feeling how he does right now, he could just do it and not give a shit…at least for the moment. And he knows what will hurt the most right now, he knows how to hurt Brian, part of him even wants to. All it would take is for him to get up, right now, dress quietly and tell him, "That was just a fuck. I wanted you to have it for future reference since you seem to have trouble telling the difference. If I’m lucky I won’t see you around, Brian." He knows Brian wouldn’t even follow him after that. 

What a fucked little fantasy that is. The truth is as much as he wants to leave, as sure of going as he was not so long ago…now that the heat of the moment has worn away (and most of his energy thanks to a truly spectacular orgasm – hey, maybe Brian’s machinations do work out sometimes) he doesn’t really want to end it. 

Brian fucked up, yes. A truly truly mind-blowing fuck up. A fucking fantastic fuck up. 

But he’s still Brian. And Justin still loves him. And…he doesn’t want to go. He’s not ready yet. He doesn’t want to just give up. 

Maybe that’s what’s truly fucked. 

Instead he wipes the cum off his stomach with a corner of the sheet, and lies back down taking Brian’s wrist in his hand and pulling him along. 

Brian comes easily like this is exactly what he was waiting for, drawing the sheet over both their bodies on the way down, pulling Justin closer into the crook of his arm until his face is pressed against Justin’s, their legs winding naturally around each other. He’s warm, and soft, and safe, and strong, and gentle, and all sorts of other adjectives that made Justin fall in love with him in the first place -- real love not that flash adoration he had at seventeen. Tricks don’t get this. 

Justin wonders if Michael did. 

It’s that kind of thinking that’ll end with him leaving tonight, so Justin pushes it away and holds on tight and says, "now what?"

Despite the blonde’s efforts, despite the warmth of their conjoined body heat, they’re both wet and sticky from sweat and spit and cum. The smell of sex is heavy in the air and neither of them makes a move to rectify any of those conditions. Instead they burrow in closer, wet, sticky, and all. 

"I already told you it didn’t mean anything," Brian says into Justin’s sweat slicked hair, "I still… feel about you the same way I always have. It’s your call where you want to be. You decide." 

"So basically you’re saying what happens is whatever I want. I should just do…whatever I want." He didn’t bother covering the disappointment in his voice. 

"There aren’t any locks on our doors," Brian says defensively. 

"No," Justin agrees, "but I didn’t think that meant we lived in a little cardboard box at the public park either. Anyone at all can just come in at will." Justin snorts humorlessly, "or should I say cum at will." 

Brian doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t move, barely breathes, doesn’t agree or contradict, just silence that Justin doesn’t know what to do with. 

"Do you want me here, Brian? Do you want whatever so-called non-relationship we’ve got? Or was this…was Michael supposed to be some sort of message you never really went through with sending?"

"He wasn’t a message." 

"Then what," he’s going to scream in a minute, he’s going to scream or cry or some other stereotypical behavior he tries not to indulge in. Then he’ll be disgusted with himself, and Brian’ll be disgusted with him, and what then? What are they going to do then? 

Justin takes a deep breath, pushes back images of Brian and Michael together, pushes back the need to dissolve into hysterics, pushes everything back and calmly asks, "what was he?"

"He wasn’t anything." Justin turns his head away but Brian tilts it back so they’re looking at each other now, directly in the eyes unflinching. "Why does it matter? I mean, other than the fact that…you know, the rules and shit. You wouldn’t be so upset if I had fucked, godforbid, Honeycutt. So why’s it matter that it was Michael?" 

"You actually have to ask me that? You love him, Bri, and he loves you back. He’s practically obsessed with loving you back. And…he can give you something I never can. History. He’s been there for you for over a decade, through some of your toughest times. I don’t have that, I can’t give that." 

"You don’t have to be jealous of Mikey, Justin." 

"Brian--"

"Let me rephrase: don’t be jealous of Mikey, Justin." 

Justin lets his own silence speak for him now. Why shouldn’t he be jealous? What’s he got now that Michael hasn’t? When now…now…Michael has so many things that Justin doesn’t. I love you and I love to fuck you. 

Brian’s face --the smooth contours, the stubborn jaw, the perfect eyebrows – is the very picture of gravity when he replies, reading the blonde’s silence like Justin has done so many times for Brian. 

"He’s my friend. You’re my…partner. I love him, yeah, but like a brother." 

Justin can’t contain a snort in response to that, and Brian’s serious expression shifts into one of mild annoyance and suddenly Justin believes it more. He wonders what it says about them, that its only when Brian’s annoyed that Justin believes his sincerity. 

"Fine, we have a fucked up relationship. That’s been established, the point is I don’t love him like I – like.." Brian trails off, and Justin doesn’t bother getting excited, no longer anticipating that now’s the time. That one time Brian might actually say it. He tries not to do that anymore. He used to, before he grew up. In fact, there was a time once when he was positive those words were on the verge of spilling out if Brian even _looked_ at him for longer than a glance. But he’s not seventeen anymore. He’s not holding his breath. He knows now that anything said while in the middle of an orgasm and tweaked out on Tijuanan tub baked, juggling-inspiring, E…well its suspect. He didn’t quite get that at seventeen. He does now. He also knows the chances of Brian saying it sober is miracle to zero.

"I don’t feel about him the same way I feel about you," Brian’s saying instead of ‘like the way I love you,’ "I feel…You already know how I feel about you. Don’t ever be jealous of Mikey. Especially not over this, it really was just a fuck that shouldn’t have happened the first time and won’t happen again. So, yes, it’s your decision where you want to be. If you want to forgive me or not." 

Justin sighs and relaxes his body completely into the sofa. All the way down, all the way back, limpid. And Brian curls around him, shifting down until his nose is pressed firmly against Justin’s throat, arms moving to wrap around Justin’s waist. He was always pretty touchy-feely, but Justin thinks this goes beyond snuggling and into the realm of reassuring. 

So. So. Brian’s said his piece. And Justin doesn’t want to give up. And for the most part he believes him. So…so now what. If he had known this was the kind of thing he was getting himself into when he wanted to fuck that gorgeous god in a t-shirt and jeans…

Fuck. He would have went with him anyway. 

"I love you. And I love being with you. You’re smart and funny and so goddamn sweet though you want to pretend you’re not, you’d do anything for any one of us. And I know you love me." 

Brian tucks his head further between Justin’s shoulder and neck, the action from anybody else (hell, the action from _Brian_ ) just screams of hiding. Maybe it is, probably it is, either way Brian doesn’t protest, and that in itself is tantamount to a confession. 

He doesn’t know if that’s enough anymore though. Reading through Brian’s actions, his words, what he does say, what he doesn’t say, how he says it, when he says it or doesn’t say it, who he does or doesn’t say it to…cross-referencing it all in order to come to a single conclusion. Kinney-ese is a language all its own, and speaking it fluently requires a lot of cross-referencing. 

"I know you love me," Justin continues stubbornly, "but sometimes Brian… you do these things and …you don’t think about me first. And it hurts. I’m just tired of getting hurt. I want a break from it for a little while, okay?" 

First his mother and the shrink, then his father and the disowning, then St. James and every fucked up homophobic prick with a vendetta and a brand new perfect blonde target-boy to practice it on, then Daphne and her fairy-tale fantasies of happy hetero life with her very own fairy, then Hobbes…

Shit, who was he kidding? Then Hobbes, Then Hobbes, Then Hobbes… and then P.I.F.A. and not being able to draw, and in between Brian. Brian and all his issues and all his convoluted kindergarten tangled rules and shit. 

Brian who can be the sweetest most sensitive man in the world, underneath a veneer that’s just bitter enough to keep you on your toes, Brian who could also in a blink of an eye (or a whiff of impending vulnerability, more like, primarily his own) turn into the world’s largest prick. In a very unflattering, un-literal, anti-pleasant feelings way. Brian who would use sex against him, fuck in his face just to prove a point, push Justin away just because he was getting too comfortable, rock the boat because still waters turns Brian’s dick soft. 

He is so fucking tired of fighting. Two years of battle, even Sisyphus got a break while the motherfucking rock rolled back down the mountain, is it too much to ask for a month without some type of trauma? 

"…and I’m trying to understand, trying to be understanding…but…I’m just tired, Brian." 

It takes a whole three seconds before Brian spits out, "then what the fuck are you still doing here?" 

Impressive really, early on in their ‘non-relationship’ it would have been an instantaneous response. Justin appreciates that. Really. Still, it’s only the fact Brian’s voice is hoarse like he really had to shove to force his throat to let them out, and his arms tighten around Justin’s waist belying those words, that keep Justin from queening out. The fucking liar doesn’t mean a goddamn word of it. 

"I said I’m tired, asshole," Justin replies almost fondly, "not I wanted to quit. Does an Olympic athlete shut the fuck down at the first sign of a muscle cramp? Go home to mommy because they’re a little winded?

"You were _supposed_ to say, how can I help revitalize you, Justin? Not basically tell me to get out. Besides we both know you don’t really want me to leave, your previous hissy fit was testament to that already, so stop being a jackass and help me figure this out, Kinney." 

"I didn’t have a ‘hissy fit’. I don’t do ‘hissy fits,’" Brian says petulantly. 

Justin snorts freely. "You threw my bag out the window, Brian. If that wasn’t a hissy fit, this ‘Twat Princess’ doesn’t know what one is." 

"I’ll go get it in a second, nothing was damaged it was mostly clothes anyway," defensive petulance. 

"Mm." 

Brian cards the fingers of his right hand through Justin’s hair, warm puffs of breath caressing Justin’s neck soothingly. "We’ll take a trip," he says into Justin’s collarbone, "go to the mountains of Vermont like your little friend Daphne, rent a cabin or something. Things have been stressful, we deserve some R&R."

"Rest and Rimming?"

"There’s my little protégé."

"What about your job? My school?"

"I’ll take a week off during your spring break. It’ll be fine." Brian presses a kiss, one long series of kisses, across Justin’s throat, comes back up for air and the warning, "but I don’t want you thinking this is a proposal, Justin. I haven’t suddenly turned lezzie--" 

"Yeah yeah yeah, you don’t _do_ Vera." 

"Right. Good." 

Justin entwines their fingers, allowing himself to snuggle into Brian’s arms, accepting his words as apology. They’re taking a break from trauma; they love each other; Brian’s willing to try…they’ll be okay. 

If he wants them to be. Like Brian said it’s his decision. Justin’s been the aggressor in this relationship since day one. They’ll be okay if he wants them to be. He…thinks he wants them to be.

But…

They haven’t solved anything. Justin will still eventually want more, he wants more now. He wants Brian to be the one who compromises sometimes…or at least more often. Because he does compromise, he does give in, he does put Justin first. Just not in ways a normal human being would find acceptable. He does say he loves him. He does. Justin knows Brian loves him. Like he knows the sun will rise in the morning. Like he knows Michael’s been waiting for Brian to finish jerking him off since that one aborted episode back in the stone-age. He knows it. Only…without the words, without the words at least _once_ , all Justin has is a bunch of conjecture. 

The kind of stuff he and Daphne used to make fun of when they were in highschool, in the days before 'Anno Domini Brian Kinney.' _"Oh he totally loves me." "Yeah? He said so?" "Yup. He says it all the time…with his eyes."_ Justin swallows a laugh to himself. The kind of ridiculous hetero shit Brian says he’s so desperate to avoid. Because there’s nothing quite so straight male as an inability to commit. To just say the words when you mean them. Or maybe it’s just male. Maybe Justin’s the aberration. 

Justin is halfway to sleep when Brian speaks again, low in his ear.

"Hey, Sunshine, if you promise not to start picking out engagement rings….I’d like to tell you something else."

Justin opens his eyes sleepily, lashes fluttering. Almost, but not quite worried. What can be worse than fucking Michael? 

A shock of auburn hair recedes from his visual focus until it’s replaced by a pair of serious hazel eyes. So very serious. 

"I um…I wouldn’t mind if you said it."

"Said what?" 

"That day you told me your SAT score. Do you remember what you said before you got out of the car?" 

It takes a minute, to remember, so much has happened in between. But it does come back. Justin smiles a little sadly thinking, God, so much has happened in between. 

They’re in the car, Brian’s driving him to school -- a victory Justin has won in itself…Brian taking time before work to drive him to school, Brian offering to drive him to school. Tricks don’t get that, not even tricks that’ve stayed too long --and Justin is ribbing him, saying something about how his youth allowed him resilience, something about the schools he can apply to…and then Brian is saying…

Justin can almost hear it: "You’re going out of state?" Kind of …not panicky or shocky so much as... just now realizing that the book you liked to read occasionally is really on library loan, and, hey, the library wants it back. Like you just realized that not only are they allowed to take it back, you _have_ to give it back, and you’re just realizing that now, do wonders never cease, you really really don’t want to give it back. Justin remembers how good that felt, to hear those words in that tone. 

"I remember."

"I wouldn’t mind so much if you said it again."

His heart thuds painfully hard in his chest like it knows before he does that this is a moment he’s been waiting for his entire life, before he even met Brian, and even though the rest of him is still not wanting to anticipate, it – his heart-- is excited. 

"So..." Brian prompts, "say that. Now." 

Justin begins a tentative smile, heart thud thud thudding. Above the roar of blood in his ears he says, whispers, "you so care about me. You love me so much." 

Brian swallows hard, whispers back, "yeah. I do." 

The smile widens exponentially and Justin lets his eyes drift shut. "I know." 

Yeah. He wants them to be.


	2. Cross-Reference

Rating wavers between a medium to hard R (is it just me, or does that sound dirty?) to a light NC-17. 

Author’s note: Between Frances and Ivan and power outages and floodings (don’t worry, just my driveway) and what amounts to really really crappy weather, and I was in the lucky part of the country, this chapter is late in coming. Hopefully none the worse for wear, however. Thanks very much go to my new beta Kristin. 

Season 2. Placed somewhere after episode 212 but veers off before 217

* * *

QAF episode 217: 

J: I don’t want to wait. I want a boyfriend who only wants to be with me. 

***+++***

_Justin entwines their fingers, allowing himself to snuggle into Brian’s arms, accepting his words as apology. They’re taking a break from trauma; they love each other; Brian’s willing to try…they’ll be okay._

Of course…that’s all well and good and everything, but the fact of the matter is …

Brian fucked Michael.

Brian seriously fucked Michael. 

Two weeks later and Justin still can’t get beyond that. Not really. And he’s tried. _How_ he’s tried.

Justin slams the coffeepot back in its holder a little too forcefully and gets the hot beverage splashed all over his apron and upper arms. Luckily the diner’s ‘hot’ coffee usually translated to lukewarm, no different today. So he’s not burnt, just soaked in the nasty watery liquid. 

“Shit.” Justin sighs softly, he does his best cleaning up the mess. But a flurry of wipes with his cleaning rag down his front doesn’t stop him from smelling like the stuff, does nothing to get rid of the stains, doesn’t even dry him sufficiently. The latest in a series of mild catastrophes. 

Et tu, coffee? Et tu? 

In frustration Justin makes to throw the rag away, checks the level of energy he’d like to put in the task when he catches Deb watching him worriedly. So far she’s managed to hold her tongue, rather uncharacteristically, and for that he’s appreciative, but he doesn’t harbor any illusions that she’ll forever remain this way. 

Gently deposit the napkin, hopefully avoid a lecture. Don’t acknowledge Debbie’s worry, and maybe…

Maybe…

Maybe…

Shit. Eye-contact. 

“Careful there, Sunshine, ‘drink it or wear it’ is just an expression,” she hollers to him across the room, then chuckles at her own joke, the worry line across her forehead smoothing out briefly. 

Justin forces a smile in response. It’s pretty passable; he’s been getting better at it as often as he’s needed the expression in the last two weeks. As often as he’s had to fake it. 

Things are tense at home. Two weeks later and Brian’s doing his thing where he fluctuates between an almost sickening attentiveness, for him, interceded with random bursts of impatience. He’s feeling soooo guilty it’s not even funny. Justin can’t even enjoy it. 

A tiny niggling little part of him wonders if that’s where the ‘I love you’ – or at least the insinuation of an ‘I love you’ -- came from. Guilt. 

As for Michael, after the call that rocked Gibraltar no more had been heard from the man. He wouldn’t mind so much if that was a constant state of affairs. 

Justin doesn’t know how he feels about Michael anymore. 

Debbie intercepts him at his next pitstop from kitchen to counter. Her eyes are narrowed suspiciously and she’s popping away at her gum with those fast chews she takes when she’s just about to out you in a lie. He’s not sure what he wants to tell Debbie – or not tell her. He doesn’t know what he wants to tell himself, some days. 

“So, you gonna tell me what’s been going on, or am I gonna have to pry it out you?” 

Fake smile. Sunshine happy. Cherub innocence. “Nothing’s been going on--”

Debbie snaps her gum and raises an eyebrow, not fooled in the least, “Don’t bullshit me, Sunshine. You’ve been moping around like someone killed your puppy and dropping something everytime the diner’s door swings open. My son’s been an irritable little shit, jumpier and snappier than a tweaked out crystal queen. And as for monsieur Kinney, I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of his infamous assholeness since yours and Michael’s mood swings began. So please, do enlighten me. What the fuck did he do now?” 

Justin has to catch himself from saying ‘which one? Your asshole biological son, or your asshole adopted son?’ His family wasn’t Catholic, so Justin hasn’t had the beneficiary experiences of the confessional but he’s pretty sure Deb’s got some of that in her genes. Being around her inspires one of two emotions, blabbing or sullen petulance. But mostly blabbing. She passed it on to Michael too because there were plenty of days Justin got verbal diarrhea around the man. 

God. The shit he’s told him. All the little…confessions he’s made to him. All the---

And no. He cannot feel more like a fool than he does at this moment. 

Although that phone call came pretty damn close. 

_Lying in bed, listening to the water run in the bathroom. Just his boxers on and once Brian comes out probably not even those, but not yet. Too comfortable to move, too warm and soft, Brian always buys the best sheets. This might sound kind of superficial, but at night this was the part he missed most during those brief few months between living with Brian round one and living with Brian round two._

_If he could just bottle this feeling, and then sketch it, fuck P.I.F.A. They could take their degree and stuff it. He’d be a fucking star, rolling in money._

_The phone rings shrilly dissipating his fantasies._

_Rolling onto his stomach, Justin picks it up after the second. “Yup?”_

_“Oh. Hi. Justin.” It’s Michael but his voice is all wrong, a mixture of shock and something nasal. “ It’s me.” No. Really? Justin rolls his eyes in good humor, only two years of hearing the man’s voice practically everyday, of course he wouldn’t know who it was._

_“Hey, Michael. Brian’s in the shower--”_

_“That’s okay, I…um called to talk to you.”_

_“Oh? What about? Not another revamp on Rage, is it? I still think the utility belt with built in condom dispenser is a good idea. Even if its reminiscent of a porno Batman. It encourages safe sex while--”_

_“No, no, it’s not about Rage.” Michael gave a little nervous laugh that immediately twisted Justin’s stomach. “Or maybe it is about Rage, just not the Rage you’re thinking of. God, I wish it was.”_

_“What? You’re not making any sense. What happened?”_

_“I um...I have to tell you something, Justin.”_

_Breathy silence. Was that swallowing in the background?_

_“I don’t know how to say this.”_

_Oh God. Someone was dead. Someone died, he was crying that’s why the nasal voice, that’s why the wrongness. Someone was dead._

_Or all the backup issues of Rage were…stolen in some freak gay-comic theft ring and redistributed under someone else’s name and sold for double what they were asking. Fucking plagiarists. “Just say it, Michael. You’re freaking me out.”_

_“I…need to tell you before anyone else does. I had to tell Ben, he asked and I couldn’t lie. I just couldn’t. And it wasn’t as bad at first because I could pretend it meant something, or didn’t mean something, and it was just the once, Justin. I swear. But then he asked and I couldn’t lie, you know? So I had to tell you too before anyone else--”_

_“Michael. Deep Breath. Then tell me what the hell you’re talking about in English, okay? Full sentences, please?”_

_“I slept with Brian. Slept slept. Like sex slept. And I’m so sorry.”_

“Hey, kiddo, you still with me?” Debbie places the back of her hand against Justin’s forehead, testing his temperature. 

“Hmm?” Oh. Right. Life altering decision to make here. To tell Debbie or not to tell Debbie. That is the question. Whether it is nobler of mind to suffer the slings and arrows of Michael’s total betrayal in silence and morbid flashbacks, or tattle on his punk ass and have his mommy smack some sense into him. Mikey, you’re goin’ in Time Out. 

This isn’t funny. Stop making a joke out of it. Been around Brian too long. 

And hell, Debbie’s said something …don’t know what it was. 

“If something’s the matter, you know you can tell me, honey.” 

“No. Nothing’s the matter.” Coward. “But, you know, actually, I need to talk to you about taking time off.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. Brian’s taking me to Vermont next week and--”

“Vermont, huh?” She tries casually, it’s a wasted effort though because Debbie’s casual is Emmett’s tame fashion sense. Her face lights up in that way it does when she can’t decide between ecstatic squealing, or outright shock. It’s not very often that he can surprise Deb, make her shocky happy, it’s a shame this isn’t one of those times. That special mixture of surprised delight only Deb can do. 

“Nothing like that, Deb. Just a vacation. You know Brian, the closest he’ll ever get to formal commitment is fucking a psychiatric attendant.”

“Or the patient, or the therapist. One of these days that kid is going to learn to keep his dick in his pants.”

This time Justin can’t stop the wince. And of course, Debbie picks up on it immediately. 

Fuck. 

“Should I be asking _‘who’_ he did instead of _‘what’_ he did?” 

Justin looks away afraid for a moment he’s going to blurt, “Not unless you really want to know the answer.” Which would be tantamount to screaming “Michael Michael!” at the top of his lungs. 

A part of him really wants to do both. Fuck Michael. 

But she’d probably just end up making it all Brian’s fault. It is Brian’s fault, in addition to Michael’s. And Michael deserved to take some responsibility. Besides, he’s forgiven Brian. He has. Really. 

Well, fuck. 

It’s just so hard to forgive when he can barely wrap his brain around the idea most days.   
There are so many questions he has still unanswered. Like, how does that happen? How do you avoid something like that for eons, only to slip up at the most inopportune moment and end up… well, balls deep in _Michael_ , of all people. Whatever rules Brian obviously had against it to begin with…how do they suddenly get tossed out, with no warning, when he had the most to lose? 

And Michael…Michael…how could he do that to him. Justin knew they weren’t best friends or anything but they were at least cordial. They got along. They were working on the fucking _project_ for Chrissake. Justin had even said once that they were so in tune it was like they shared a Brain. Freudian slip? Did he know he really should have said share a Brian? How do you just betray someone like that? How could he just sleep with Brian, just like that? 

Okay, so on some level he knew Michael Novotny was not his friend. 

He’s ‘Brian’s friend’. The concept shouldn’t be so hard to grasp, Michael’s only been telling him (repeatedly) since the day they met. You’d think he’d finally get it after two years. He’s Brian’s BEST friend. The most bestest friend in the whole wide world. Michael only makes a point of announcing it to every not-even-semi-interested random I-just-happened-to-glance-in-your-direction passer-by. 

He’s Brian’s friend, not Justin’s. Okay. Fine. 

Justin doesn’t remember that thought hurting quite so much when he was seventeen; why the fuck does it make any difference now? 

Mostly he just can’t stop thinking about it. Like that analogy everyone always throws around of gawkers at a train wreck. His brain keeps stuttering, often randomly incited by nothing and at any given moment, on possible scenarios. Brian and Michael together, fucking. Different positions, a whole array of places, different expressions, a veritable smorgasbord of –

“Well look what the cat dragged in.” 

Justin turns to see what’s caught Debbie’s attention and is captivated by Brian’s confident strut into the diner. 

Speak of the devil.

“Debbie, please, for me, leave it alone?” 

“If he’s done something, Sunshine---”

“Then it’s for me to handle.” 

Debbie sighs, snaps her gum, and gives him one last worried look. “If that’s how you want it…”

“It is.” 

“Alright. This is me, minding my own fucking business.” 

Justin’s smile is perfectly sincere this time. “This is me being grateful.” 

Debbie huffs but he can tell she’s not really upset, and the next second she’s patting his cheek and chuckling to herself on the way back to the kitchen. 

It fades a little, so Justin plasters it back on wider, as he approaches Brian’s seat. He can do this. 

***+++***

In bed together Brian’s begun to face the other way. They don’t start out that way, but in the morning Justin’s on one side, Brian’s on the opposite, as far opposite as you can get. 

It’s barely like they share a bed anymore. 

Justin misses him. He’s not sure what to do about that, its kind of his fault. He hasn’t been terribly receptive lately, he’s tensed a few times whereas before his reaction was to relax. That’s not deliberate either, it just happens. 

They haven’t had sex since that last time, two weeks ago, on the sofa, after Brian chucked Justin’s things out the window -- they still haven’t found his favorite charcoal pencil, the one with the white ring on the end. 

Justin doesn’t know if Brian’s had any tricks since then, and honestly he doesn’t want to know. He’s not sure how he’d react to an affirmative.

Justin hasn’t had anyone, hasn’t much felt like sex really. He’s wondered, occasionally, when there’s nothing left to do (but think of Michael and Brian together in bed, on the floor, against a wall, in a stall, would you could you in a stall), if it’s possible to be impotent at eighteen. Surely not. He’s in his prime, right? His glory years? 

That night, Justin can feel Brian’s want in the air, can practically taste it. Brian’s eyes keep flickering over Justin’s abdomen, thighs, groin. He even catches him visually undressing him on his way to the kitchen, gaze like a physical caress over Justin’s back. Not surprising. No matter what he says about ass and cock, Brian’s a back man. He loves caressing it, licking it, sucking kisses into the steady flex of bunching muscles, pressing his chest and stomach against Justin’s back, running a hand between Justin’s shoulder blades. 

Michael doesn’t have all that great of a back, but what he could tell through baggy jeans, his thighs were pretty good. Did Brian appreciate that? 

Justin’s bites his tongue hard as warming arousal is batted abruptly down. God, if he could just stop thinking about them for like five seconds at a stretch…he’d be so thankful. 

Justin pretends he doesn’t notice Brian watching him, wanting him. They don’t have sex that night either. 

He has to work this out, they can’t keep going on the way they have. 

***+++***

It’s a week later, still sexless, still awkward. Brian’s quit initiating it, or trying to initiate it. Justin’s not punishing him, not trying to at least, but the thought of sex with anyone, Brian included is… it’s a turn-off in a big way. Catching your parents going at it type of turn off. 

Neither of them mention it, as if not saying anything with make the problem disappear. The weird thing is Justin hasn’t been this horny since he was seventeen years old pre-Liberty avenue days. Being that horny was what made him brave the street in the first place. 

Horny and bored. This is his life. 

That night at the loft, Justin’s home a full five hours before Brian. He’s going out of his mind. Each day it’s earlier and earlier that he’s left with nothing to do. There’s only so many times he can revise his homework, only so many chapters from his history of art text he can read before his eyes start watering and the words start blurring, and his mind melts from the sheer monotony. Three weeks since he’s found out about Brian and Michael and his entire social life has shut down, his social circle is Brian’s social circle is Michael’s social circle. It’s not so odd he’s been avoiding them all, but as the clock carefully clicks its way to six fifty it does leave one wondering just what he did before wriggling his way into Brian’s life.

There’s Daphne, of course, but she’d take one look at him and know something was wrong. Then she’d wheedle, and threaten, and mope, and extort, until she found out what discordance was screwing with his Chi. It’s been bad enough talking to her on the phone. 

He needs to get a sane, passive, non-pushy friend all his own. 

After the diner, Justin’s spent the day reorganizing the linen closet, flipping through channel after endless channel of daytime drama, planning their Vermont trip down to the last detail (gum for the pressure drop, loose sweatpants for initiation into the Mile High Club – they are having fucking sex on this trip if Justin has to fucking fake it), and really wishing he enrolled for a Wednesday class. 

Fucking Wednesdays. 

By the time eight-thirty rolls around, he’s envisioned Michael and Brian fucking in a combined fifteen different locations, twenty-eight different positions (some which were pretty anatomically impossible unless your spine was liquefied and extracted from your body), every approximate three point five seconds. Rounding. 

But he’s also bored out of his skull, which far outweighs all else. When Brian comes in that night, Justin is ridiculously happy to see him. A physical bliss temporarily transcending any and all hurts and betrayals and warranted suppressed anger. He’s almost convinced himself (not quite but just about there) that there’s no reason for him to be upset, whatever Brian’s actions, it’s not enough to disrupt the pure symmetry and destiny that is their relationship. 

He has big plans for this trip. They’ll reconnect. Talk it all out, fully this time, not just Justin freaking out and Brian freaking out and shit being thrown out windows and fucking on the sofa. They’ll have an actual conversation, work through their problems, make love by firelight, Justin will get his questions answered. 

When Brian waltzes into the loft, Justin’s in a very vulnerable place. 

Which is, his only excuse for not immediately recognizing Brian’s steady packing for what it is. Tie after shirt after expensive suit go into Brian’s suitcase, his frame backlit by the warm glow of the closet’s 100 watt bulb. 

“That’s a lot of Prada for snowboarding,” Justin notes. 

Brian heaves a breath, says, “I’m not going snowboarding.”

He doesn’t understand at first, or …he doesn’t want to understand. They’re both the same thing really, same end result. It’s two weeks ago all over again, with a variation on tune. Brian’s confusion for Justin’s. 

“You can’t go to Vermont and _not_ go snowboarding, Bri, it’s part of the experience.” 

“Yeah. I’m not going to Vermont either.” 

“What?” 

“I have to go to Chicago.” 

“When?” 

“Tonight.” 

“Tonight,” Justin repeats dully. They’re leaving for Vermont tomorrow. They were leaving for Vermont tomorrow. 

He sucks in a breath, holds it, lets it back out in a long sigh that pulls his lungs and heart and all the major ticking organs back into alignment. He’s waited for this; this shouldn’t hurt. “What’s in Chicago?” 

“My new account.” Zip. Slam. Sink. This is how you break a heart by closing a bag. His job, his fucking job is more important than they are. 

“Okay.”

“Vermont’s just going to have to wait.” Michael is more important than they are. Brian’s libido is more important than they are. 

“Okay.” 

“It’s business, Justin. We’ll go away after I get back.” Brian’s fucking image is more important than they are. 

“Okay.” 

“Snowboarding doesn’t pay the bills.” Now his job. Exactly how far down the list is he? Is he even on the list? 

“Okay.” Each successive answer has gotten quieter and quieter, though Justin’s not aware of it. It’s taking all his energy not to cry, or scream, or climb into bed pull the covers over his head and pretend this day didn’t happen. 

By the last ‘okay’ Justin is practically mouthing the word; Brian snaps. 

Sickening attentiveness to random irritation. Justin’s no more prepared for the mood switch than if Brian had been a little more attentive, a little less ‘butter wouldn’t melt’. So guilty it’s not even funny. 

“Look,” Brian barks out, closing the distance between them rapidly, “this wronged damsel in distress bullshit is getting old. I’m not waiting around forever for you to decide whether or not to grace me with your royal favor.” 

So spoiling for a fight that Justin would give it to him, just to shut him up, if only he weren’t feeling quite so dizzy. 

“And I’m sure as hell not losing my job to placate one of your whims. This trip’s important, Vermont is just gonna have to take a backseat. If you can’t handle that then fuck it. You knew what you were getting going into this, and I’ll be God-fucking-damned if--”

If Justin has to listen to one more word he’s going to be sick, very literally very nastily, all over Brian’s floor. He’d do it too, if it wasn’t so fucking pathetic. 

“Brian. Brian? Okay. Fine. Go to Chicago, go get your new account, go—just, go. Some other time.” 

Brain pauses abruptly, the flow of his words chopped off, and he watches Justin with a tight jawed scowl that says he doesn’t believe him, and he’s not sure if he should let this go. 

He does though. When he wants to, Brian can be very good at letting shit go. 

“Well, good. Okay.” Brian reaches for Justin, leans down and kisses him briefly on the lips. “I’ll see you when I get back.” 

And that’s it. 

So much for transcendence. 

Justin closes his eyes as he hears the loft door slide shut with a heavy metallic clang. That’s it. He permits tears this time. There’s no one around to see them, what’s the point in holding them back. There’s not so many anyway. He knew this was coming; this shouldn’t hurt. 

Most of his stuff is still packed from three weeks ago. He never got around to putting them back, and Brian eventually got tired of suggesting he should -- ( _“are you ever going to get rid of that bag? It’s clashing atrociously with the strong Italian lines of the loft.” “Yeah, soon, I just don’t feel like going through it all right now.”_ )-- maybe it was a sign. 

Anyway, it doesn’t take long to gather it all up again. It goes quicker than before and everything. 

Justin swallows, looks around one last time, and slides his cell phone into his back pocket. 

Funny how much easier it is to leave when Brian’s not around to stop him.


	3. Cross-Reference

A/N: Many many thanks go to both Jane and Alix for their help. If you don’t like it, it’s their fault. ;)j/k

* * *

Staring blankly ahead  
Just making my way making a way  
Through the crowd 

~~ Vanessa Carlton (A thousand miles)

 

By the time Justin reaches the first floor, he’s riding high on potent rage. It feels good. Really really good. He’s decisive, he’s strong, he’s independent, he’s _no_ body’s fool. 

He’s full of shit. 

If he tries really hard, maybe he’ll eventually forget that part. 

…

Yeah. So full of shit. 

He goes over the list of people he can crash with in his head. Again. And just like before the realistic possibilities are few. Most of them can be crossed off with a great big: “Brian’s friend” next to their name. The rest…

He really needs to expand his social circle. 

Sometime around three he settles on Daphne as the lesser evil. Even if she does have two other roommates, she at least won’t mother him to death. And at least he won’t have to wander around Pittsburgh with a full duffle bag, getting strange looks from other early morning pedestrians, suspicious looks from the odd cop he passes. 

Although, judging by the size of that glare, Daphne’s roommate may very well kill him and bury his body under the floorboards. 

Justin doesn’t have a chance to get even a semblance of a rational excuse out, and he could have come up with one a little less pitiful than ‘I’ve left my boyfriend and I’ve nowhere else to go’ had he the time, so he feels a bit cheate – Oh. God. He’s left his boyfriend. He’s left Brian. 

He’s left.

He’s left….

The red-head stumbles away from the door while Justin’s having this life-shattering epiphany, yelling, “Chanders! You have a visitor.” 

A moment later Daphne descends from her room bleary eyed and puffy-haired, clad in matching baby-blue t-shirt and shorts. She looks half-asleep, dazed…not pissed. He loves Daphne. 

Justin offers her a sheepish smile and gestures blandly at his abandoned duffle beside a red couch with black trim. Brian would never own a red couch with black trim. Actually, Justin would never own a red couch with black trim. It’s hideous. He’s not sleeping there.   
If he was back home he wouldn’t have to sleep on it, but he’s not, so he might, because he’s left.

He’s not sure which is worse, that thought going round and round in his head unceasingly, or the vision of Michael and Brian…

Fuck! Now that’s back too! 

“Rate it,” she orders. Her eyes keep blinking shut and taking a half a second too long to open again. 

A smile flutters to life on his face. Rating the level of their personal dramas was something they used to do when they were twelve, just kids playing at being grown up with nothing really to worry about. They haven’t rated anything in years. He realizes it’s probably only slipped out because she’s half-asleep, but still…this is part of his past, part of him. Sometimes he can’t remember a before; it’s nice to be reminded. Nice to know he’ll have something left…

God. They broke up. 

Not a fifteen because he left voluntarily. But he did leave, so greater than a ten. And then there were the visions, and the fact that he’s _left_. And the fact that his last salvation is one uninteresting comment away from passing back into unconsciousness. “Thirteen, if you make me sleep on the couch. Eleven otherwise.” 

Daphne nods. “Okay,” she says in a voice that’s a trifle too loud, “lock the door and come on.” 

She doesn’t have to repeat herself. 

Following is not a problem. Following is good. Following keeps him from thinking too deeply about how easily his life just got shoved down the toilet. Well, okay, in the toilet but not flushed yet. His best friend since forever shuts her bedroom door with him inside, totally oblivious to his impending panic attack. She’s still too asleep to care right now. If he was at all decent, he’d let her go back to bed and talk to her about it later. 

He should. He really should. 

“Daphne, what do you think of Brian?” 

That wasn’t supposed to come out his mouth. 

Daphne yawns and flops down on her bed, burrowing her way under the covers up to her chin. “I love Brian,” she says sleepily, “he’s cool.”

That wasn’t supposed to come out _her_ mouth. Why isn’t anyone cooperating? 

Justin strips down to a t-shirt and boxers and climbs in after her. It’s a tiny twin mattress, nothing at all like Brian’s huge king size, and they’re practically on top of each other. Daphne automatically shifts over as much as she can to give him room. She’s warm and accepting and uncomplicated. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s not in love with her and has absolutely no desire to fuck her…Daphne would be the perfect choice for him. If only she were a guy. Hey, maybe he can convince her to get a sex change operation. 

“Okay, Brian’s cool,” he agrees in a tone on the false side of sincere, “but don’t you think he’s a bit of an ass? I mean he’s completely wrong for me, isn’t he?” 

“Mmm.” Her eyes are closed now, and she’s doing that weird whuffling thing she does when she’s falling asleep, where it sounds like she’s been crying for hours on end and the sobs have just recently petered away. 

He feels impending panic pressing closer. 

Justin ‘accidentally’ flings a limb out and shoves her awake, nearly shoves her off the bed. “Daph? Brian’s completely wrong for me, right? He can be an ass, correct?” 

She rubs her eyes, yawning hard. Blink, blink, blink. He has to nudge her again in the stomach to make her stop blinking blankly at him long enough to answer. “I guess. He can be. Sometimes.” 

“Most of the time,” Justin corrects. 

“Well…sometimes. He’s pretty cool though.”

Jesus, even half-asleep she’s the single most uncooperative human being on the face of the earth, forget the operation. 

“Daphne. Brian’s totally wrong for me. Right?” 

Say yes. Say yes. Say yesyesyesyes. God, he’s left. Say it was the right choice, say it had to be done. 

Instead she says, “Any possibility we can discuss this in the morning?” 

“It is the morning.” 

“A saner hour then?” 

“Thirteen, Daph. It’s rated a thirteen.” 

There’s nowhere to go in this tiny bed so wiggling out of his reach is impossible; she tries anyway with a half-groan. “You said eleven.” Her voice is perilously close to whining, the same tone she had when she was six and Justin accidentally ate the last skittle that she apparently had to have or else she’d fall into a diabetic coma complete with epileptic seizures and, strangely, an amnesiatic fugue. And they thought he was the drama queen. He mercilessly smothers any kernel of sympathy he might have for her, she doesn’t have school tomorrow (or today, depending on your point of view), and he’s the one having the personal crisis. She can wait it out. 

“That was before my best friend decided to ditch me for sleep. Abandonment moves the severity up two points. It’s in the manual, you should know this.”

Daphne lets out a little laugh that’s interrupted by a jaw-splitting yawn and curls herself into a ball. A person shaped ball with a messy brown fluff poking out. “Fine. What do you want me to say here, Justin?” 

“I don’t want you to say anything, just how you feel. Honestly.” 

“Riiight. Okay, sure. You’re in that ‘that stupid inconsiderate asshole is lucky I don’t believe in violence’ mode again, aren’t you? What’d he do? Give me something to work with and I can better fulfill my role as properly supportive best friend.” 

She’s making that face now, the one she makes when she’s trying to be diplomatic and polite but feels anything but those two, the one she made in junior high when Celeste-whatever-the-hell-her-last-name-was asked her if she ever felt weird being ‘like the only black kid’. It’s hidden beneath a haze of sleep-depravation but it’s there and he sees it. He’s known her far too long to _not_ see it. 

It’s …comforting. 

“Why don’t you think he’s wrong for me? Everyone else does. Half the time _I_ think so. Three quarters of the time. Seven eights of the time.” Albeit all those times occurred while Justin was steaming pissing mad at him… 

“I think I get it. What happened?” 

“He had sex with Michael.” It’s not any easier to say. Not with time and distance and someone other than Brian. It’s not getting any easier to say. It should be, he’s thought of it so often, he’s tried to come to terms with it, saying it or not saying it doesn’t change the fact that it’s _happened_ so it should really be no big deal anymore. No easier though, still that accompanying pang of …of…bitter hurt. Of his entire chest crushing inward and deflating. 

Brian fucked Michael. 

Oh, Amazing. One quasi-positive product of this whole mess: Justin now knows how to wake Daphne up with a single sentence. Varying shades of melodramas throughout the years and he’s been trying to figure out how to accomplish that. Congratulations, all it took was ---

Not going to imagine them together. Not. 

“Michael, Michael? Best friend Michael? Debbie’s son Michael? That Michael? Collaborator on Rage, Michael?” There’s not a single lethargic line on her body. She’s never been awake so quickly in her life. 

“Yeah, that one.” 

“Wow.” 

“Yeah.”

“Really wow.”

Justin shrugs halfheartedly and says no more. 

“I thought they had a strictly no sex in any capacity relationship.” 

Justin snorts and rolls onto his back carefully; one leg falls off the bed to the floor. “So did I.” 

Daphne follows suit. “That’s kind of … creepy.” 

“No shit?” 

“Don’t you guys have rules about doing anyone you know?” 

“Rules were made to be broken, I suppose.”

“Wow. _How_ did that happen?”

Justin would like to know that too. It’s the single most pressing detail he’d like to know most. How. 

“I don’t know. I don’t…” he takes a little breath and lies, “I don’t want to know.” 

Daphne, always energetic when justice and truth and the Chanderian way is being threatened, sits up, yanking with her the blankets. “How can you not want to know? It’s kind of important, Justin. I mean, he slept with _Michael_.” 

He does want to know. He’s just …scared. Scared to death of finding out something maybe he shouldn’t. Some reason he hasn’t thought of yet, some logical explanation for the illogical. Something he couldn’t live with. 

“I just don’t okay? Why should I have to listen to the details? It’s not going to change anything. And anyway, that’s not why I left tonight. That’s just…that’s just part of it, I guess. I’ve known about the ---I’ve known about the other thing for almost a month. Michael called and told me.” _“I um...I have to tell you something, Justin.” “I slept with Brian. Slept slept. Like sex slept. And I’m so sorry.”_

Daphne settles back down with a little frown, thankfully she’s caught his hints and is hopefully going to drop the ‘how’s. No ‘how’s, Daphne, Okay? No ‘how’s. 

“Shit,” she says, “what did you do?” What, infinitely better than how. 

“Nothing. I was too stunned to say anything to him so I just hung up. Then I packed, screamed at Brian, tried to leave…”

“And?” 

Justin looks at the ceiling tracing the lines with his eyes, seeing instead that day he alternately couldn’t bare to think of, and couldn’t bare to stop thinking of. “He threw all my stuff out the window, told me I wasn’t going anywhere…then we fucked.” 

He cuts his eyes to look at her when the bed starts shaking, then rolls them back to the ceiling. “Personal crisis of eleven, Daph,” he reminds blandly. “Eleven.” 

Through stifled giggles, she forces out, “Sorry. Sorry. I know laughing’s a completely inappropriate response but…” 

But his life is funny when it isn’t painful, or even when it is. 

“Was the sex at least good,” Daphne slides closer as she asks this curiously, underneath the light tone a cautious note holds fast, she’s testing the waters to see how hurt he’s actually feeling, which approach she should take in cheering him. He knows this because he knows her and he allows it because this too is comforting. God, he loves Daph. 

“We’ve had better, we’ve had worse.” 

“You’re kidding, there’s such a thing as Bad Sex with Brian,” she teases. 

Justin smirks. “I never said we had bad sex, I said we’ve had worse.” 

“Ah. Excuuuse me. Then what?” 

“We did what we usually do after an argument and make-up sex. Pretended like it never happened. He said hav—fu—being wi—“ Deep breath, spit it out. “The thing with ‘he-who-shall-not-be-spoken-of’ didn’t mean anything. I said bullshit. He said, no really. I said, no really, bullshit. He told me to tell him that I said that he loved me, I did, he agreed.” 

“…that’s…sweet. Convoluted, but really sweet.” 

“It was very Brian.” 

“So then what?” 

“Then we went to sleep, he promised to take me to Vermont--”

“Hey, that’s where I went with James,” Daphne interjects, she’s watching him avidly, curled around a pillow. 

“That’s why. So we could have like a time out together. We were supposed to go tomorrow.” No more drama, no more trauma, they were supposed to take a break. They were supposed to reconnect. How did everything get so screwed up so quickly. 

“Then why the hell are you over here trying to trick me into badmouthing your boyfriend?” Daphne echoes his thoughts. 

Justin smiles sadly and tucks his chin further into the warm comforter. Big, soft, warm, cotton comforter, not a duvet. Never a duvet again. 

“Because he’s on his way to Chicago as we speak. I don’t know when he’ll be back. But that doesn’t matter anyway because I knew what I was getting into, he’s not waiting around for me to decide whether or not to bestow my royal favor upon his person, and he’ll be goddamned – pardon, God-fucking-damned if he loses his job over placating my mercurial whim.”

“And I heard the ominous presence of quotation marks because…”

“Because they were there. It’s pretty much what he told me before he left.” 

“Wow.” 

“Yeah.” 

They lay side by side quietly, practically twisted around each other because otherwise one or both of them would be on the floor. Daphne keeps smoothing his hair from his forehead over and over. 

“What are you going to do,” she whispers eventually into the collected silence. The one question he wishes someone else would answer for him. ‘Tell me what to do, Daphne,’ he wants to plead. Why can’t it be that easy? 

“After I finish tricking you into badmouthing my boyfriend? I don’t know. I repacked my shit, forwent the screaming and came here.” Then quietly, so quietly it’s barely a breath, barely made real and brought to life, yet still…still there. “ I think…I think I’m leaving him, Daph. I think I left him.”

No tears this time. Not in front of Daphne, not because of this, not for a decision _he’s_ made. 

Her hands don’t stop caressing for a moment, he feels four years old again, spending the night at her house, her mother tucking them into bed and brushing the hair away from their faces, whispering, _‘Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite’_. 

“The ‘think,’ I assume, means he doesn’t know?” 

“He will when he gets back.” She forgot to mention, don’t let life bite. No wonder he’s been so fucked, a vital piece of advice went missing. He has to swallow around a solid presence in his throat, blink back a stinging in his eyes. 

“Want my advice?” 

“That’s why I’m here.” 

“And I thought it was for the free bed and all the butterscotch pudding you can eat.” 

Justin forces a tentative smile, finds it’s just as hard to fake as pretending you’re not about to cry. “That too.” 

“If you really want to leave, then do it. If that’s what you think is best for you, but don’t do it this way, Justin. You can’t just not be there when he gets back, that’s really fucked.” 

“I can’t be there right now either. I just can’t.” 

She nods like she understands. Probably she does, who knows him better than Daphne? The girl who wasn’t phased when he came out, who routinely supplies love and support and butterscotch jello shooters because its his favorite flavor even though she can’t stand it. 

“Then go to Vermont, take the trip, cool off. Make a decision when you’re not hurt and angry. Take this time to think about what you really want, then either work it out or break it off when you get back. This could actually be a good thing. You both get some time alone to figure out what you’re gonna do. But let him know something, Justin.” 

She hugs him because she knows that’s easier said than done. He nods and hugs her back because he knows she knows. 

“What would I do without you?” 

A smile’s pressed against his cheek. “A hell of a lot more drama. Just…are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Sure? No. But he keeps hurting me, Daph, and I’m not sure how many more times I can… It’s hard, and it hurts, and I don’t want to do it anymore. Is that wrong?” 

She shakes her head slowly. “Of course it’s not. But…no. Nevermind.” 

“Go ahead and say it.” 

“It’s well…you sorta let him get away with a lot of shit, you know? And never tell him that he’s getting away with it.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well…if you don’t like something, you should tell him. You can’t just pretend like it doesn’t matter. Like you want to do it, like you _like_ it.” 

“I never--” Justin begins hotly only to be interrupted by a fierce glare. 

“Need I remind you of the pride march?” 

“I should have gone to that, I’m glad I went.” 

“You still let him talk you into it, let him drag you there to begin with. You only went ‘cause he wanted you to. How about Date Night?” 

Justin stiffens. Even now, even after everything, he can’t admit agreeing to those terms was an act of desperation that arose from needing to keep Brian in his life. “What about Date Night? Monogamy is for --” 

“--- ‘dykes, breeders, and breeder-wanna-bes,’” Daphne fills in rotely, “Hmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that one before.”

“It is.” 

“Right, Justin. That’s really what you believe.”

“It is,” Justin repeats stubbornly. 

She rolls her eyes, not even pretending to believe him. “Remember in eighth grade when Rebecca Stevens caught her boyfriend feeling up Carly Lawhorn? Do you remember what you said?” 

Yes. Distinctly.

“That was eighth grade, of course I don’t remember.” 

“It wasn’t all that long ago, besides I remember perfectly. You said, ‘if that was my boyfriend I’d kick his ass, and then I’d drop him.’”

Justin turns his head away and rolls onto his back, time to stare at the ceiling again. “Comments like that,” he mutters, “ and no one knew I was gay?” 

“ ‘Course we did. I knew long before you told me, and your parents let you sleep over at my house. My parents let you sleep over at my house. Everyone knew. That’s not the point. The point is you’re totally for monogamy.”

“I was twelve.” 

“You were fourteen, and you were honest.”

“I’m not now?” 

“I think…somewhere along the way, being gay, being with Brian, those things kind of took precedence over everything else.”

He thinks about it briefly. “But I am gay, I am with Brian.” 

“Yeah, but that’s not all you are. And being those things shouldn’t take away from who you are. You can’t remold yourself into what you think the perfect homosexual should be, the perfect boyfriend for Brian. Just like you couldn’t and shouldn’t remold yourself into what your father thought of as the perfect son.

“If being Justin Taylor means being monogamous, then being gay Justin Taylor, Brian Kinney’s boyfriend should mean being monogamous. But,” she stops and look at him closely, tucks herself further into his side and just looks at him. “But,” she says again in a soft voice, “that’s only if it’s that important to you, if it’s not then okay, drop it. Date Night to your heart’s content. But it should be your choice, Justin, not someone else’s insistence. You’ve been confusing the two for awhile now. So… you can’t really blame Brian for getting confused when you’re sending mixed messages. Especially since you _know_ if its at all possible he’ll pick the easy way out, he’s not very good with change. _You’ve_ told me that.” 

“So what? I need to take this time to ‘find’ myself.” He’s pretty sure he wasn’t going for defensive belligerence, it’s a sore subject and possibly she’s right. Maybe. A little. He does let Brian get away with …pretty much anything he wants. Sometimes. It’s the only way he could stay in his life, not always, just sometimes. 

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Daphne agrees. 

“Yeah.” It’s not that he doesn’t want to believe her. Okay, it is that he doesn’t want to believe her (who wants to hear they’re a push-over and that’s why your boyfriend consistently ….well, pushes you over) but that’s not the only reason. Daphne tends to get a little philosophical and ‘consult your birth star, empower your internal voice’ early in the morning; her opinion is suspect. “I suppose,” Justin says solemnly, “while I’m out searching for myself, it wouldn’t hurt to look up my inner child.” 

Daphne punches him in the shoulder, hard. “Oh shut up.” 

“No. I’m serious. He’s probably feeling ignored and frightened.”

She bites her lower lip, the corner of her mouth twitching, and says, “I’m serious too: shut the fuck up, you freak.” He can tell she’s about to laugh. She pushes away from him and retreats to the opposite side of the bed, all ten inches away, pouting. “Fine. Don’t listen to me, make it into a joke. What do I know? I’m only the girl you woke up at three in the morning with a stage eleven personal crisis, why should I actually _give_ you advice?” 

She’s so cute when she rants. He can’t help it.

“Hey, Daph?” 

“Yup?” 

“Hold me?” 

They look at each other, across the peach pillows and tangerine sheets, and crack up.

Daphne giggles until she starts coughing so hard he’s afraid she’s gonna bring up something unpleasant, like drool or dinner or an internal organ. Which for some reason makes him laugh harder, which makes her start laughing again, which prolongs the cycle until they wake up her roommates who shout through the thin walls for them to shut the hell up. 

Daphne throws a hard-cover book at her wall and screams back for them to stop fucking their boyfriends so damn loudly at three o’clock in the morning and she’ll consider not laughing at three o’clock in the morning. Justin points out that the comparison between having sex with a significant other and laughing uncontrollably with your best friend really says something rather pitiful about the state of Daphne’s romantic life. He can’t help it, it does. Daphne crosses her eyes at him and sticks out her tongue in response, a look created and perfected in middle school. He loves Daphne; he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. 

***+++***

The morning drifts off and away, no word from Brian. 

Justin leaves for Vermont on three and a half hours sleep. His eyes feel grainy, gritty, the consistency of soft-boiled eggs rolled in sand. They’re probably red and puffy, but other than a precursory glance at himself in Daphne’s mirror he’s tried to stay away from things that will reflect his appearance. He doesn’t want to know how he looks, feeling like shit is enough of a confirmation for him, he doesn’t need to see it as well. 

Originally the plan was to rent a cabin. That’s too painful now; he books a hotel instead. Actually, Brian books a hotel since it’s his money paying for it. There’s a smattering of justice in the act. Justin checks in, raids the food bar, watches the four walls of the room, pretends he’s not waiting for the phone to ring. Daphne has the number; Brian could get it if he wanted it.

He never gets around to leaving Brian a message. Picks up the phone a few times with the intention of calling...but…

It’s not pride, it’s not fear, it’s some combination of the two and probably more emotions than that that makes him put it back down without dialing a single number. 

Justin spends the majority of his time in that room, lies to himself about the reason. Oh, it’s because he’s not feeling up to snowboarding right now. Later, when it’s warmer. There are hardly any good gay bars or clubs in Vermont, it’s practically the backend of nowhere, what’s the point in wasting time searching for something he’ll only be disappointed in finding? 

Really he’s hesitant about leaving the room because Brian might…Brian…

When he finally does venture out beyond the borders of his self-imposed five star prison, there is a guy there. More than one, really, in fact, plenty of them are interested in him. But there’s only one Justin finally goes with. 6’4, brunette, built, deep chocolate eyes, as it turns out just a so-so package, but a huge nelly bottom so that doesn’t matter. Justin brings him back to the hotel and they don’t leave for three consecutive days. They have sex. Lots of it. Hot, sweaty, passionate sex. Repeatedly, i.e. more than once. With kissing. In fact, Justin’s tongue was all in his mouth, practically measuring his tonsils. Some of the satisfaction of the moment erodes when he realizes that he’s simply breaking his own rules. Brian doesn’t have rules. 

Brian also doesn’t call. Not once. 

It’s not until after the trick departs for locations unknown and uncared about, that he realizes just how much he resembled…

Ben. 

Michael’s Ben. 

He doesn’t vomit. No retching, no nausea, no regurgitation of digestibles, he doesn’t react to this bit of information at all. Except for the trembling. Sitting in a fully furnished, lushly accessorized, and comfortably heated to a warm 82 degrees hotel room, shivering uncontrollably. Other than that he’s fine. He’s fine. So what if later he breaks his nightmare-free record of three months with a whopper that culminates in a sweaty, petrified awakening.

Justin boards the plane back to Pittsburgh on a Sunday afternoon, knowing two things: he can’t go on this way, he physically _can’t_ …and…life is miserable with Brian. Equally so without. 

This has been less of a vacation, more of a practice in cultivated anxiety. 

***+++***

The first thing he does after dropping off his stuff at Daphne’s is head to Woody’s. No conscious planning goes into the decision, he’s functioning on no sleep, no word from Brian, no fucking idea of what he’s going to do next. In that state Woody’s a logical pit-stop. 

He should have remembered… it didn’t begin as _his_ logical pit-stop. 

He is lucky though, it’s just Emmett who sees him. ‘Just Emmett.’ Right. Only the biggest gossip on all of Liberty Avenue, more importantly, the bearer of news for their tiny circle. 

What if he tells him something he’s not ready to hear? Like…like Brian found someone new, fell madly in love, and got married…

Okay, even as a paranoid fear that’s just ridiculous. 

“Hey, baby. We haven’t seen your bright face around these parts lately.” 

“Hi. Emmett. How’s everything.” Justin has never been more grateful for the poor lighting. 

The other man smiles widely. “Sometimes good, sometimes crazy, you know how it is. We’re just about to head to Babylon though.” He tilts his head to the left, gesturing to the table he’s left, and presumably the other part of the ‘we’. “We’re treating Michael to a night of gratuitous debauchery to cheer him up.” Emmett lowers his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Ever since the professor broke up with him, he’s been kind of down.” Gossip delivered, he raises his voice again, cheery, upbeat. “Care to join us, and round out our little triad?” 

That would be the day. Cheering up Michael…

A kernel of a thought is born in his over-stressed, sleep-deprived, paranoid brain. His heart starts thumping loudly, Boom Boom Boom. Nice to know it’s still there, over the past few days he’s wondered. 

Over the rushing of his ears he hears someone with Justin’s voice say, “Can’t tonight, but is Michael here? I kind of need to talk to him.” 

Emmett’s looking at him when he responds, “Sure, he just went off to the little girl’s room.” But surely Justin couldn’t have asked that question. Justin knows better than to torture himself, he’s not going to go searching out Michael of all people …that would be just stup--

“Thanks,” the malevolent self-torturing being that’s hijacked Justin’s voice and body says. That can’t be right either, his heart pounds harder, Boom Boom, but inside he feels calm. Inside everything is still, everything is waiting. 

This can’t possibly be a good idea. 

Justin slips around Emmett and heads to the restroom.

The scenery passes and changes without too much consultation from him, the lighting gets worse, the stench of liquor and smoke and sex gets thicker, making it harder to breathe. His legs pull him forward, around corners, past the sound of couples fucking in stalls. Woody’s isn’t Babylon, but it has its share of bathroom antics. Heaven forbid anyone ever actually needs to piss in here.

He finds him at the sink. Standing there, staring into the mirror, and even his heart goes silent. 

‘Miserable’ wafts off Michael in thick tangible waves. There’s a good five feet of ‘this man is too depressed to approach’ surrounding him in an orb of invisible force. Even Justin is starting to feel a little sorry for him, and he has just about the single most appropriate reason to hate his guts forever and ever amen. Detest, abhor, loathe, revile in the rapture that is intensely disliking Michael with every fiber of his being. 

Michael doesn’t notice him at first, too busy staring at himself. He jumps, startled, when Justin speaks. There’s a bitter satisfaction in that. 

“I came here to ask you what happened. Why it happened--” This is the first Justin’s known about his intentions, but once the words fall out of his mouth he realizes it’s true. “—but I’ve just realized that I don’t want to know. I…don’t want to know. So instead I have a few things I want to tell you, then as far as I’m concerned if we never speak again, it would be a perfectly acceptable set of circumstances.”

Michael looks around, miserably, with an air of resigned terror, the very picture of a man marching off to his death sentence. “Justin, could we do this somewhere else?” 

“No. This isn’t going to take long.” This is the first they’ve spoken since that call, the longest they’ve gone without some sort of contact since Justin entered their lives, pushed his way in head-first stubbornly. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, he doesn’t know how he feels about Michael, but words fall out of his mouth anyway, without consulting his brain. “First, I don’t care what you tell everyone but no more invitations to hang out if you’re going to be there. I don’t feel like having to make up an excuse every time Emmett asks, or Debbie insists. Granted, family dinners are going to necessitate that you’re present, and that’s fine, otherwise I want a warning beforehand. Second, if you still want to go through with ‘Rage’ then I’ll stay on until you find another illustrator, but I want J.T. written out--”

“Justin --”

“ -- what you do to the character is your choice, he heads off to college out of state, he doesn’t survive the bashing, he gets a sudden bout of incurable amnesia and leaves never to return again, I don’t care. I just want him out. And I’ll be doing all the art remotely, meaning send me an e-mail with the storyline and how you want it to look, I’ll attach the pictures in return.”

Michael hasn’t met his eyes since that first startled glance, he’s looked at everything else with an intense fascination Justin knows is false, nothing made of plaster and cold ceramic is that interesting. “Is that it,” he whispers low. 

“One last thing.” Michael freezes everything with the pronouncement, stills himself unnaturally and pales ghost-gray, still not meeting his eyes. “When you fucked Brian,” Justin tells him, “you fucked all of us. You compromised your integrity, betrayed my trust, betrayed Ben’s trust, but most of all you betrayed Brian.” 

Michael, for better or worse, has always worn his emotions loudly. On his face, in his actions, spoken and lived and shown with no tact, no subtleties, no hiding. If he was jealous you knew it, if he was in love you knew it, if he was hurting…hurting so badly that the pain was an oppressive weight pulling in two opposite directions, splitting him while it crushed him…you knew that too. With each word Justin renounces his worth, and watches the weight drag down with a little more force. Still he can’t stop, won’t stop. Michael’s flinching and breaking and bleeding openly, still he doesn’t stop. Can’t. Won’t. Later, later he’ll wonder what kind of person that makes him. 

Now he doesn’t give a damn-fuck-hell-shit; he’s hurting too, he’s hurting too and this is the man who caused it. The only one he can make hurt back. 

“Friends, _Best_ friends, don’t screw each other out of relationships. They don’t tattle to your lover behind your back, and they sure as hell don’t use your insecurities to get you into bed. Whatever it is that you’re telling yourself so you feel better about it, know this: it’s bullshit. _You_ were the emotion and relationship expert in the Michael and Brian show. He depended on _you_ to set the limitations, follow the rules. And you are the one that betrayed that.” Tears well in Michael’s eyes, his already red-rimmed eyes, but they don’t spill down his cheeks. A few more moments and they probably will, a few more words and he could probably make them cascade down his hallow cheeks with unrestraint. A biting feeling in the pit of his stomach, climbing up like acid backwash, stops him. Turns him, marches him out of the restroom, out of the bar. 

He thinks it’s shame but maybe it’s just heart-burn. He can’t be sure.


	4. Cross-Reference

'Cause it's all in my head  
I think about it over and over again  
And I can't keep picturing you with him  
And it hurts so bad, yeah

But I think {I’m} leaving  
Ooh man {I’m} leaving  
I don't know what else to do  
I can't go on not loving you  
 _Nelly (f. Tim McGraw)_

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Walking down the street, Daphne keeps shooting him little inscrutable looks. She isn’t literally biting her tongue, but Justin knows that’s only because any moment now her diplomatic sensitive side is going to cave and she’ll spit out every suppressed syllable.

Five 

Four 

“He must’ve been really pissed that you just went off without saying anything, which I still can’t believe you did, by the way.” 

Damn, his count is off. 

“I mean, to come home and just find you gone like that? No note or anything?” 

Justin shrugs and stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. He loves Daphne and all, but he can seriously see himself beginning to hate her if she keeps up this line of thought.

So. Okay. He admits it; it’s pretty chicken-shit cowardly to end a relationship (is that what he’s doing?) by simply avoiding any future contact with the… other party – dumpee is such a harsh word. This is true. And…yes. He’d be pretty – livid, irate, furious, simmering with indignity and rage -- upset if the return was ever done to him. So, granted, it’s cowardly and hypocritical and he’d never tolerate it nor excuse it were he on the other side of the situation. But! In his defense…Brian hadn’t made a modicum of an effort to find out what was going on. Not one tiny, insignificant inquiry. And, not only that, but the entire situation was his fault to begin with. 

First Michael. Then Vermont. Now the not calling… 

Maybe that doesn’t justify his cowardly chicken-shit behavior, but come on. You have to have someone to relate to in order to carry out a relationship. If Brian wasn’t even going to try, then it was already over. A phone call wasn’t going to change that. 

He’s so not at fault for this. So Daphne can take her admonishing mom voice and stuff it. 

“That was a really shitty thing to do, Justin,” Daphne echoes his thoughts unhelpfully.

Seriously, utter and complete hatred.

“You’re the one who _told_ me to go to Vermont,” he reminds in a tone that has moved so far past defensive that it’s circled back around and picked up bored indifference. He’s tired, his brain hurts, school has recommenced…

He’s still no closer to figuring out what he’s going to do about (with, to, for) the Brian situation. It’s a situation now, somehow it’s developed that status. A stagnant situation but a situation all the same. 

“Yeah,” Daphne says, “but I thought the ‘tell him before you leave’ was kind of self-evident.”

“Well I guess it wasn’t.” 

“I guess not. It should have been.” 

He shrugs half-heartedly. 

“So was he,” Daphne prods insistently at his side. 

“Was he what?”

“Pissed.”

They’ve had exactly one conversation since Justin’s returned from Vermont. One. That Justin initiated. That lasted all of thirty seconds whereupon Justin blurted the bare essentials, Brian said ‘Fine’ (Fine. Fine, their relationship is combusting all around them and all he can say is fucking fine), and they both mutually decided it would be appropriate and prudent to hang up. Is he pissed? Who the hell knows, not Justin. 

“Who the hell knows with Brian.” He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. 

“You do normally.” Daphne’s strides begin to quicken to keep up with him, his speed unintentionally picking up.

“Yeah, well.” Justin shrugs, bunches his coat further around his shoulders and practically buries himself in it up to his ears as best he can. He’s doing a defensive turtle imitation. Back stiff, shoulders hunched. “I didn’t go by, just called to let him know I was back and that I was going to stay with you for awhile.” 

He hesitates, feels his chest constricting vice tight, blurts, “I think there was someone there with him.”

“Wow,” Daphne says. It’s her sympathetic, ‘this is a wow not of awe but of stunned incomprehensibility because fuck that’s a terribly shitty thing,’ tone. “You gonna ask?” 

“What’s the point? He won’t tell me even if I did. And I don’t really want to know anyway. Fuck him if he is pissed. _I’m_ the one who should be pissed. I should be in a constant state of pissdom. Eternally.” Damn fucking right, if Brian really cared at all about him he’d be groveling right now, telling Justin how he _worshiped_ the ground he walked on, how very wrong he was for …

Anything but this ridiculous silence. 

“No. I meant, are you going to ask him if he had someone over.” 

“Same answer.”

Daphne forces a smile and pretends she misunderstands, that entertaining the idea of Brian ever actually admitting anything he doesn’t want to is plausible. 

“Ummm…You should be the one who is in a constant state of having someone over? Reverting to sexual promiscuity is a defense mechanism that will only lead you to heartache, Justin. It solves nothing. Buy a cat instead. ” 

He allows her to pretend. “Thank you, Dr. Chanders.” 

She smiles at him and they walk a little longer in silence. 

A part of him thinks he should be over this by now. Shit or get off the pot, as Debbie would say. It’s been over a month, all this … all this back and forth …it’s avoidable angst. Doesn’t he have enough of the unavoidable kind in his life as it is? 

It’s not fair that each time he comes to a decision one way or the other he’s clobbered from behind with reality, heart over head biting in, pulling in two opposite directions with equal strength. 

There hasn’t been a single moment since they’ve met that he’s not loved Brian. Plenty where he’s not liked him so much, but never any where he’s not _loved_ him. Not even now. That must mean something. He knows he had a life without him, he can’t imagine it anymore, surely that means something. Despite what’s been done, you don’t just walk away, you don’t stop fighting, not when you purportedly love someone. You don’t walk away from them. You don’t. Just…walk away.

Then he remembers, then he pictures _them_ together, then he hears Michael’s voice. And it hurts. It hurts like something substantial, something vital being ripped away, softly sickly. 

And that has to mean something too. 

He’s so tired of indecision.

He’s so tired of wanting to cry. 

He’s so tired. Period. 

“Hey, he’s pretty good.”

Justin looks up, for once since they met for lunch today grateful for Daphne’s intrusion. He hasn’t noticed they stopped moving, neither has he heard a note of the sidewalk string concert Daphne’s watching with avid – forced – interest. 

A familiar brunet passionately weaves notes to a sad song around them, his eyes closed as his whole body sways with the rise and fall of his music. 

Black curls cling to the light mist of sweat on his forehead, his flushed cheeks a warm pink. 

Ethan Gold is still a heartbreaking combination of tortured love lost and vulnerable passion. Charming, talented, sweet, wrapped around a just shy of revoltingly arrogant exterior. 

The day they met he knew Ethan was the beginning of something terrible. It’s not often you get warnings so 20/20 preceding an event, hindsight and all that, he knew with Ethan from the first. The first word, the first smirk, he was dangerous. 

Because…

Being with him would be breathtakingly …simple. It’s tempting. 

Brian Kinney a la mode, a little cream and sugar added to black coffee, herbal tea with a packet of sugar. The same charm, the same arrogant appeal, same obsessive attention to detail, same aura of intensity, in an easier to swallow capsule. 

Still, now, it’s tempting.

“Look at his eyes, they’re gorgeous.” 

Justin rolls his own. “Daphne, not only is his back to us, but he’s like twenty feet away. You can’t see his eyes.” 

“So I’m extrapolating a little. I’m sure if I could see them, they’d be gorgeous.” 

“They’re okay.” 

Daphne rapid fires questions at him that he barely hears; too caught in reverie. “How do you know? You know him? What am I asking? Of course you do. Who doesn’t Monsieur Social Butterfly know? He’s probably gay too, isn’t he? It just figures.” 

Brian tied his tie for him that day, acknowledged the importance of the day in one breath denounced it in another. Then sent him off to be wooed by a five-eight watered down version of himself. 

That’s not fair. Neither to Brian, Ethan, nor to himself. This isn’t about Ethan Gold. It’s not even really about Michael Novotny. The hell if he can figure out what it is about. 

“I go to school with him. He’s the guy that Lindsay and Mel took me to see for my birthday.”

“Cool. How was it?”

“Fun. I talked to him after the program, he’s pretty…confident. It was a little disconcerting really.” No it wasn’t. It was flattering. It was exciting. It was the first time Justin can remember actively flirting with someone he had no intention of fucking, playful flirting that wasn’t meant to go anywhere. Daphne doesn’t need to know that. 

“I thought you liked confident.” Her smirk says she already knows. One of those downsides to best-friendship. 

“I do,” he admits, “it’s sexy. But if he was cruising me any harder the audience would have gotten another show for their money; Gay Karma Sutra to the soundtrack of Schwann: The wooing of fresh meat.” Reminded him of Brian. 

Daphne laughs. “I have to head to Bio.”

“Yeah alright.”

He watches Ethan, aria melting into concerto. It’s tempting. 

Just not that much. 

“Daph! Wait up, I’ll walk you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Nothing better to do.”

***+++***

The weekend floats by on clouds of pot induced false content; instinctively he knows he wouldn’t be able to get through it without that inducement. He has a project due on Tuesday he has yet to begin. He has an exam on Thursday he has yet to study for. These things hold no credence over his current state of indigence. 

It would probably help if he stopped calling in sick at the diner. Beggars can’t be choosers, but the emotionally fragile can’t risk confrontation. 

What to do, what to do. 

He and Daphne bring up his homelessness over fruit loops, mixed berry yogurt, and vodka shots. 

“You can stay here,” Daphne pipes excitedly. By the expression on her face she’s having delusions of never ending slumber-party madness. Nights they’ll stay up giggling and gossiping and drinking hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows. Mornings they’ll take turns making each other breakfast while they plan what exciting adventure they’ll have that day. The kind of arrangement they thought they would have when they were twelve and planning their futures, before things like boyfriends (and bills and space issues and potential nervous breakdowns) got in the way. 

Justin doesn’t bother replying, he simply looks around Daphne’s small (cramped-smothered-tiny-packed-no-room-to-breathe-if-there’s-more-than-five-people-present-at-the-same-time) three bedroom obviously. 

She deflates. “Okay, maybe not here.” 

“You could kick your roommates out,” Justin suggests amiably. 

Daphne’s forehead squinches up, thoughtful, as she considers it. “How would we pay the rent?” 

“You pay half, I pay half.” 

“You don’t have a job.” 

“I do too. At the diner.” 

“By the time you get up off your ass and return, you won’t have a job,” Daphne modifies. 

“Debbie wouldn’t fire me…I’m her little sunshine.” 

“Who bitched out her little baby boy.” 

“He deserved it. Had it coming. Besides, I doubt Michael even told her. He’d have to tell her why I bitched him out.” 

Daphne takes another shot followed by a spoon of yogurt. “Still…” 

Yes. Still. There’s a reason he’s been calling in sick. 

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? Moving out?”

He sighs and directs a red fruit loop into elegant figure eights in the middle of his purpling milk. “I…I don’t know. I think so.” 

Her gaze is full of compassion…and worry. “Maybe before we decide all this you should…get sure. Like soon. Which would probably require you actually speaking to him. Hint. Hint.” 

Justin takes another shot. 

***+++***

A week slides on past. Then another. He finally realizes that time’s passing when Daphne sends him out for groceries and he wanders by the wine coolers. 

The bottles of burgundy and dark blue remind him he’s yet to get Linds and Mel an anniversary present -- Linds and Mel…LindsandMel…how long has it been since they’ve been individuals, not one half of a sacred diad. 

He stops in the aisle, remembers he needs to buy them a gift, remembers their anniversary is right around the corner….realizes the date. 

Realizes it’s been nearly three weeks (almost a month…almost a complete month) since he’s _spoken_ to Brian, never mind seen him. 

He didn’t mean for all this to happen, for the silence to stretch so long. It just sort of spiraled further and further out of control, longer and longer with no contact, no speaking, until it was easier to let go than to hold on. Easier to not say anything, to simply forget there was anything that needed to be said. 

Daphne is going to be unforgiving when he tells her he completely ignored her advice, and has _still_ not said anything to Brian. 

Maybe he won’t tell her. 

He never really decided what to do, but his indecision was probably just as good as a decision. It’s been too long with no correspondence to suggest they’re still together. 

In the parking lot he unlocks his mom’s car with what Molly calls the ‘clicker,’ and realizes that their ‘relationship’ ended the same way it began. Without formal agreement, without them sharing a word about the subject. He guesses that’s only fitting. 

It’s weird being single though. Especially since he was never un-single, or whatever the opposite of being unattached but not in an officially validated relationship is. 

***+++***

In penance for his lack of decisiveness with Brian, that night he takes immediate action, and brings an expensive bottle of wine along on an impromptu trip to Lindsay and Melanie’s. 

The wine used up half his savings, he seriously needs to go back to work before he’s destitute and writing “Will work for food” across his t-shirt ‘cause he can’t afford cardboard.

Then again. Debbie. Michael. Avoidance. 

He knocks on the door nervously, appalled to find his hands are shaking and sweating in equal measure. 

There’s just enough time between his knock and the sound of the door unlatching for him to work up a healthy panic. These aren’t just his friends, they’re his family too, in all but blood and name. But they weren’t his _first_. 

God. Gus is Brian’s son, his biological son. 

They probably know already. They probably hate him. Lindsay is probably feeling all torn and betrayed on Brian’s behalf. 

They’ll be uncomfortable, awkward, blatantly disapproving. 

Why did he come here? Why couldn’t he have mailed the stuff? 

There’s no time to change his mind, the door’s already opening. 

Justin takes a deep breath and plasters on ‘indifferently brave’. 

“Hey cutie,” Mel greets with a warm smile. 

Shit. It’s worse. They don’t know. 

If she did the smile wouldn’t be so …sincere. Brian and Melanie like to play “evil arch-nemeses” but they’re more friends (in their own sibling rivalry Lindsay-loves-me-better-than-you twisted way) than anything else, and they’ve always been there for each other when it’s counted so Justin figures if she knew she’d at least shoot him a disapproving frown. Or congratulate him for finally getting his shit together. You never know with Mel. 

She turns, tracing her way back the way she came, assuming Justin will follow, so fucking predictable. Etiquette insists he doesn’t turn tail and run though he’d very much like to, he’s forced to render her assumption correct. Damn filthy WASPy upbringing. 

“Lindsay, look who’s here,” she announces, all friendly and approving. Shit shit shit. 

Indifferent. Brave. Bravely indifferent. “I wanted to drop this off,” Justin says crossing the room after her. Lindsay is sitting at the dining room table, Gus and a book reclining on her lap, snug and comfortable. The very picture of domestic bliss. 

Her expression fades from bright delight to disappointed confusion. 

Shit.

“You’re not coming to the party on Saturday,” she asks, “is something wrong?” 

Shit. Shit. 

“Everything’s fine…I just unfortunately have a previous engagement I can’t get out of--” 

The look on her face cuts him off mid-sentence. _Why_ doesn’t anyone believe that? It’s plausible! He _could_ have something else to do. 

“Justin, if something’s the matter you can trust us.” Melanie circles around behind him.

_Shit_. 

“Whatever it is, maybe we can help.” Lindsay stands and covers the front, little Gus watching with sleep-glazed interest.

Attack and counterattack, they’re good. 

All he needs is Gus to look up at him with those hazel eyes and say in that cute high pitched warbling slur of his “Jussin, was wong?” 

Don’t look at the baby. Don’t look at the baby. 

“No. It’s…nothing’s wrong…” Don’t look -- oh fuck it. “Brian and I are no longer together.” 

“You left?” From Lindsay, neither as shocked or appalled as she’s trying on. 

“What’d the asshole do?” From Melanie, less smug than he expected. That makes it worse somehow.

How many more times is he going to hear that question before he breaks and spills everything?

“Brian didn’t do anything,” he lies, “we’re just…incompatible. And anyway, he could have left me. I could have been the one who did something.”

The girls’ share a look.

“Well I can’t say I’m surprised. It lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.” Melanie. Of course.

“Are you worried about him being there,” Lindsay interrupts. She’s good at that, playing go between. Justin imagines she has to be; falling in love with one Brian Kinney is bad enough. Two in one lifetime is insanity or great organizational skills. “Because he’s already said he’s not going to attend, which makes sense now considering.” 

Clench in his stomach like something live rebelling, hard, twisting clench. Yes it’s that. Yes avoidance. All of that. But not only, not only, and he didn’t even know there was more until he was knocking at their door, hands trembling. 

“That and…I didn’t think you’d want me around. You’re his friends.” 

“Oh, baby, you’re our friend too.” Mel’s voice is soft in a way he’s only heard when she’s talking about Lindsay and Gus. 

“We love you both,” Linds adds. God. There’s nothing to say to that. Nothing. 

“You possibly more than Brian.” Melanie. She doesn’t mean it, the tone hasn’t shifted, hardened, her arms hang loose at her sides, it’s a joke because she’s seen the shimmer in his eyes. 

Lindsay hoists Gus higher on her hip, the toddler one long line of languid comfort, and gives him that hopeful smile. “So we’ll see you there?” 

***+++***

Looking around, Justin doesn’t know how he ever thought he could do this. He knows _why_ he did it, he just can’t seem to understand how he thought it would work. Lindsay said they wanted him there. Mel called him “cutie” and said he would always be their friend, Brian or no Brian. Even Gus looked up at him with Brian’s eyes, held in Lindsay’s arms protectively like some serene little baby Buddha, and somehow his attempt at fading unobtrusively from their lives was aborted before it ever had a real chance of gaining ground. That was why. 

Now though, with Emmett and Ted wrapped in each other’s arms – not like usual, like lovers, when the _fuck_ did that happen, by the way -- staring at him from one side of the yard, and Debbie glaring at him from the other side…

Fading unobtrusively sounds like a brilliant idea. The best idea he’s ever had. Like, ever. 

It doesn’t happen, but still. Brilliant. Deb corners him between the refreshment table and the porch. 

“I heard you broke it off with Brian.” 

Justin shrugs. Yes. No. Kind of. Yes by default. Toss a coin and pick one. 

“And why, pray tell, did I have to hear this from the girls instead of from the source himself?” 

He shrugs again, finding the napkin that cradles the hors d’oeuvres he’s never going to eat really fascinating. Look at those…designs, and lack of color, and stuff. 

“Is this why you’ve been so scarce lately? Are you avoiding me?” 

Shrug. He knows this isn’t going to work, it never does. Debbie’s everyone’s interfering overbearing mother and combined pit bull, she leads herself down a self-appointed path of ‘righteousness’ (truth, justice, the Novotny way) and doesn’t fork left or right for anyone. He tries anyway, he’s an idiot like that. 

Idiot for Brian, idiot for Debbie. The same tactics over and over again, thinking somehow somewhen something will change. 

“Justin.” 

He looks up guiltily. Deb never calls him by his real name. Not unless she’s royally pissed. It’s like the full name rule, everyone knows your whole name but your parents only utilize it under the direst of circumstances. With Debbie it’s Sunshine, kiddo, kid, never plain Justin. 

“Whatever happened between you and Brian, it stays between you and Brian. We all still love you, and you’re still a member of this family. Do I make myself clear?” 

They’re killing him. They must know this. He nods because to speak is to cry. 

“Good. I expect to see that cute little ass of yours back at work on Monday, Sunshine, and I don’t want to hear any shit about it.” 

The rest of the party is uneventful. Emmett and Ted _are_ together now, together together. It’s frightening. He smiles anyway, without a wince and everything. Congratulates them. Best friends turned lovers. Any other day, _any_ other day that wouldn’t be so melodramatically gut clawing ironic. 

Speaking of which, always speaking of which these days, Brian and Michael are both mysteriously absent. No one mentions it. Conspicuously no one mentions it. 

Not even Debbie, an even more frightening thought than Emmett and Ted engaged in ‘intimate relations’ of the depraved and sordid, her silence might mean she knows. Everything. 

Maybe not. Brian and Michael are still absent. 

A tiny insecure part (fucking bullshit lies, a larger than average insecure section that derives from and belongs solely to that special place called Brian&I: our-mutually-inclusive-self-destructive-‘relationship’) of himself wonders if maybe they’re together right now. Brian and Michael. Dynamic duo till the end. 

They’re not together anymore, that shouldn’t still hurt. 

Life would be so much more palatable if it followed the fucking rules. 

***+++***

One month, two days. It’s taken one month and two days to get to here, to get to _this_. 

He stands outside the loft. Head resting against the cold metal door, forehead pressed against it, into it. The grains of the cold metal forming indentations in his flesh. There’ll be lines when he moves, this moment imprinted visibly on him. Not forever, but long enough, lasting enough that he’ll have time to look in the mirror and see the physical proof of tonight.

He rocks on the balls of his feet. 

Might as well stay a few seconds longer, it’s already too late, he’ll always remember what happens next, red lines across his forehead or no. 

The steel’s too thick for any movement inside to reach him; nothing crosses that blatant barrier without written consent-- drawbridge to Brian’s castle fortress. All he hears is the steady thrum of his own blood pumping through his veins. 

If he could dredge up something other than this terrible numbness…this would be so much easier. Or…or harder depending on what he dredges up. 

He takes a deep breath that goes nowhere, inflates him emptily, pushes off from the door and uses momentum to unlock and slide it open all before the exhale leaves his lips. 

Step one complete. See? That wasn’t so bad. 

He half expects sounds of fucking to assail him. They don’t. _He isn’t_. 

Brian’s at his desk.

God. He looks good. He usually does, but today. Tonight. He’s wearing an open collar black sleeveless shirt that’s classy lounging around the house casual meets clubbing dressy so it’s probably ridiculously expensive, and the tan slacks Justin loves to see his thighs framed in, the ones that mold to his flesh and ripple with him as he walks. He’s barefoot, his shell bracelet is mysteriously missing, clean shaven, and his hair has grown a little longer (like Justin’s own, actually, though not nearly as long as Justin’s). 

He looks the same. And different – it’s been so long. And gorgeous. And welcoming. And so many nouns and so many adjectives Justin wants to forget because remembering only makes this burn in his throat and that solid presence around his stomach worsen. 

Justin swallows visibly, and decides that’s the last moment of weakness he can have tonight in Brian’s presence. That’s it. He can break down when he gets home, no more in front of Brian. 

“So,” he says moving further into the room and sliding the door shut behind him. Inadequate. Completely inadequate. It’s the best he can do, carefully scripted speech or no. 

“So,” Brian repeats woodenly; he hasn’t looked up. He hasn’t startled, he hasn’t looked up, his tone is one of bored concentration – the one he gets when Michael starts in about comic books. I would care, I’m _trying_ to care…but the lack of a _semblance_ of something worth investing an _iota_ of genuine interest is making that _really_ fucking difficult.

This could be any other day for him, except…There’s nothing on his desk but an unbooted computer and an eraser-less pencil. “Forget something,” he asks, words flirting with sarcasm but as of yet unsettled on one night stand or lifetime commitment. 

One month, two days, not nearly ready. Not slightly prepared. Justin starts to shake his head ‘no’ but honesty prevails halfway through and he ends up nodding. “Forgot to talk to you.” 

Brian heaves a big sigh, then turns to him, looks up, meets his eyes, with a smile so fake – so plastic—it’s painful to see. “ ‘Bout what?” 

Automatic violent pain in his right hand forces Justin to unclench the fists he’s unconsciously made. “You know about what.”

“I figured your absence spoke for itself.” 

Nice. Beautiful. Perfect shot. He’d trade the pain of this with clenched fists, any day. The flash of guilt that shouldn’t be. It’s _not_ his fault. _Not_. 

He gave and he tried and he did, and Brian’s the one who fucked Michael, and Brian’s the one who went to Chicago, and Brian’s the one who said never-won’t-can’t-not-for-you. No guilt. Play by the fucking rules, Brian! 

“I didn’t plan on doing it this way. I wasn’t going to at all until…I don’t know, I don’t know how everything got so screwed up.” He’s blurting these things he doesn’t want to say, the prepared script he had falling away useless. 

Brian shrugs and stands, taking this time to turn away and head for the kitchen. His face is blank, all expression shut down, Justin can’t read him anymore. He used to be able to. 

Which means what? He either got better at hiding, or Justin stopped trying. The thought runs on repeat in his head, tongue twister nursery riddle with no answer in sight, no answer that matters. 

“Where’re you staying?” Questions like that matters. Like he gives a shit. Justin’s tempted for a second to say on the street, cold and homeless. Gonna pay for a new apartment for me? Quarter me away somewhere warm and safe, out of sight, out of mind? Big brave Knight riding to the rescue, just in time to come to the aid of his poor wayward twink on the side? 

That’s…not fair. To either of them. 

“Daphne’s for now.” This is so…strange, surreal, talking like this. Saying nothing and everything while ignoring the pink elephant they’re _sitting_ on. “Later… I think I’m going to get my own place.” 

Brian’s nod comes from halfway across the room and the distance isn’t purely physical. He’s gone from this, this room, this conversation, this planet if he could figure out how to wear an astronaut’s jumpsuit and still keep up his quota of tricking. 

It feels wrong doing this to his back, but he’s not…he’s not feeling up for the drama it’d take to wrench him back in. What would be the point? All that energy wasted for nothing, it’d change nothing. 

He abandons twelve different sentences that start with “I’m sorry” and “I didn’t mean for this to happen” and end with twelve different variations of Brian saying “You do what you have to.” 

Instead he fidgets around inside his jeans’ pocket, fingers grappling for the cold sting of hard metal. “I wanted to drop off your keys.”

Gone. Totally gone. “Leave them on the counter,” Brian says, head tilted slightly while he examines the contents of his refrigerator. One month, two days, and Justin remembers what the inside of Brian’s refrigerator looked like before he moved in and stocked it with actual food. Nothing in there is that fascinating unless you’re stoned high out of your mind. Maybe not even then. “While you’re at it, take your computer with you.” 

It takes a minute, longer, to figure out what he means, longer than it should to sort through his memories and figure out when exactly he bought a computer and with what funds did he manage this endeavor. It clicks only because Brian’s pointing in its direction, a previously unnoticed behemoth of a box neatly packaged with _his_ computer.   
His. It says something about their relation--- about them that he’s never considered this gift to be his. But Brian does. 

Another useless question with hopeless answers, or is that the other way around?

“It’s yours,” he refutes half-heartedly. This isn’t a fight worth having, isn’t one he wants. But that verbal momentum thing he has is going here, that habit of faux independence. 

Justin watches him carefully as his lips form the words his face is too impassive to emote. That too is familiar, he doesn’t give anything. Not when it matters, not when it’s really important, not the really important things. Yes his time, yes his money, yes bits and pieces of himself here and there but a hint? Could he give a clue? A tiny hint or a word or a syllable that could be deciphered from Kinney-ese to human normal? No. That’d be too much. And right now all Justin has to cross-reference with is _Brian Fucked Michael_.

“Bullshit,” Brian says, clipping the word hard, “it’s yours, you need it, take it.”

It’s stupid to feel betrayed by that sentence. So stupid since he’s doing something nice, something a year ago Justin would have sold his right kidney (and possibly a piece of his liver) to have been offered. A selfless act of sacrifice that was irrefutable proof of Brian’s love for him; now it’s an extension of that same old modus operandi: Do whatever you can for you. 

“I can’t anyway, I don’t have any transportation right now---”

“Fine. I’ll mail it.” Brian shuts the refrigerator without extracting anything from it. He completes half a pace that ends abruptly in front of Justin, his focus needle-sharp and fully concentrated on him, but otherwise impassive and unreadable. 

“Was there anything else?” Brusque, blunt, Brian all the way. 

No. No nothing and everything. His choice was made, the keys are returned. There’s nothing left. 

He leaves. Brian doesn’t stop him. He wasn’t expecting, he wasn’t hoping, he just thought that maybe…

Something inside lets go. Something he hadn’t known was still holding on, waiting, hoping, clinging right along beside the hurt. 

Time slows down to normal pace after that. He’s able to go through each day without actively suppressing the urge to forget what day it is or how longs it’s been, after that. 

In fact. After that? It’s six months one week and four days before they see each other again. And by that time Justin isn’t counting. Really. 

Really.


	5. Cross-Reference

I know the territory  
I’ve been around   
It’ll all turn to dust  
And we’ll all fall down  
Sooner or later you’ll be   
Screwing around 

(Anything for love – Meatloaf)

Thanks once again to Jane who has been exceedingly (amazingly, astonishingly) patient, encouraging, and a brilliant audience all at once. Happier fic soon to come. And also thanks to everyone else who is still following along even with my ridiculous breaks between chapters.

* * *

_It’s six months one week and four days before they see each other again. And by that time Justin isn’t counting. Really._

_Really._

But… backing up a bit…

After leaving Brian (God. That sounds off, leaving Brian. Left Brian. Having _left_ Brian) Justin returns to the sanctuary of Daphne’s humble abode. For all the reasons previously stated. Namely: where else is he going to go? 

It…doesn’t last. 

Why? Three girls, two with steady boyfriends who for some odd reason believe their dating status gives them equal apartment ownership rights and never fucking leave, and Justin. All cramped into a small three bedroom. Six people. Three girls. One bathroom. One. Bathroom.

Does he need another reason? It was okay when he was hiding out from Brian for the past month, but now that that’s over and this is his permanent home? No. No no no. 

This brief educational (and frightening) foray into the world of feminine hygiene quietly reconfirms two things: 1) He needs his own place and 2) If being gay became a choice tomorrow, he is so _so_ choosing it. Lesbians must be fucking insane. 

A friend of a friend of a passing acquaintance knows this “guy” who knows a “guy” who’s renting out his former apartment real cheap. Is Justin in? Like phat is the new cool. 

***+++***

A week after the final confrontation, the emotionally stilted showdown between “I don’t give a damn if you leave or stay” and Justin’s own pathetic “I don’t give a damn if you don’t give a damn if I leave or stay --- but do you really _not_ give a damn?” ---

Fuck. 

No thinking of Brian. Fuck Brian. Brian doesn’t exist, remember? 

A week after living with Daphne (that’s better), and he’s moved into his very own first apartment. 

It’s kind of nice in his new place.

Well, in the sense that it’s his new place. 

Otherwise, it’s nothing terribly elaborate, four walls, a floor, a few windows to let the sun in…

Not exactly the color scheme he’d choose (The former tenant/landlord called it apricot fire, but honestly? Orange is orange is orange, there’s no way to spin that and make it cool) but he doesn’t plan on living here the rest of his life and that five hundred dollar deposit fee isn’t something he’s willing to forfeit in sake of palatable interior design. 

And so it’s a little…well…he prefers the term ‘cozy’ to small (cramped, compact, claustrophobic, et cetera et cetera et cetera). ‘Quiet’ to maddeningly silent….until the neighbors decide to have a random, abrupt, with no warning or invitation “2 a.m. – till” party that causes the ceiling rafters to shake and rattle distressingly, bits of ceramic filing tumbling in bursts of white flutter. 

However! This is okay. This is completely okay. First apartments are supposed to suck. It’s practically a mandate; poor college student thou shalt live in thine merry hovel, suffering jovially in the spirit of character enhancement, until such a time as you are deemed worthy to upgrade. It’s a right of passage. 

This is -- 

An insect suspiciously shaped like a cockroach (though he is as reluctant to name this as he is to use the word “small”) scuttles its way across faded floorboards (all hard wood floors his ass, plywood is _not_ real wood) and squeezes bodily into the cracking molding between kitchen cabinet and living room wall. 

Jesus. First apartment. It gets better.

***+++***

It does get better. Mostly because he’s learned how to judiciously ration the amount of time spent in said hellho—homestead. 

For example: It’s completely tolerable in forty-five minute increments, with a side of an eight hour span of time allotted for sleep. 

Still, at first it’s a little too quiet (barring neighborly high-jinks); he lies awake staring at the four walls, the floor, the windows. Thinking things that follow no logical train of thought and that he makes himself too busy to remember in the morning. But otherwise it’s good.

And the nights are a little lonely…

Sometimes. Not always. And not _for_ always. That’s the key, it’s not for always. 

He doesn’t know exactly when he got used to the feeling of someone else’s body heat emanating beside him while he slept, but the absence is felt strongly, harder to dispel than the memories of the good times he’d no longer have. 

He doesn’t trick anymore. No drinking, no drugs (illegal or prescribed – even if there was the urge, he doesn’t exactly have money for that lifestyle anymore), his mother would be so proud.

Except for the fact he’s going to have to drop out of school (his father still makes too much for him to get a loan, and without Bri—without financial backing he can’t afford tuition), he has no direction in life, no idea what he’s going to do in the next week much less the next ten years, and barely any money in which to do it if by some miracle of a chance he figured the former out. 

These things take time, everyone tells him so. Linds, Mel, Deb, Daphne…

He never realized how many women were in his life until all the men were carefully extracted. 

Until he carefully extracted them. Not that Brian really gave him a choice – 

Stop.

If this is going to work, if this is really going to work, he needs to forget about everything that went right or wrong, suppress every flash of disappointment and hurt, every moment he’s ever had that included Brian in any shape or form. He needs to forget him until remembering no longer hurts.

He can do it. 

He’s had a lot of practice in the field. Different topic; same concept. 

***+++***

Mom leaves a message on his cell-phone. He doesn’t have a landline yet. He won’t have one for a long long time because that costs money, which he doesn’t have. The roaches can bear witness to that fact. Of course, his mom doesn’t know that because she doesn’t know he’s moved. Because he didn’t tell her about anything, not moving out, not the stuff with Brian, not getting a new place. Nothing. 

Her message is short and cheerful and he winces through every sincere syllable. 

“Hi Justin, it’s Mom. I keep calling you at home but I don’t get any answer so I thought I’d give your cell a try. Call me back. Love you. *sound of a virtual kiss* Bye honey.” 

It’s the “I keep calling you at home” that freezes his blood. Home isn’t home anymore. At least not his. The time he spent at Daphne’s, he made sure to call his mother first in order to avoid this very situation. 

As long as she thought everything was status quo, he could pretend and then he wouldn’t have to answer any questions. 

But what if…what if between the time she left the message and he picked it up, she tried again? And Brian answered? And told her …told her what? 

He can’t talk to her. She’s going to want to know things…. About the break up, the move, where he’s living now ( roaches…roaches…falling ceiling…), how he’s doing in school (breathing gets a little harder, lungs shrinking from the thought of confrontation with his mom, heart palpitating), how he’s paying for everything ---

Oh God. Oh God-God.

His thumb plays nervously over the tiny number pad as the automated voice asks him which option he’d like to choose from the main board. Save, Erase, Replay? 

Oh God-God-God. 

What if she knows about school? What if she _knows_?

_Message Erased_. 

***+++***

He has an apartment warming – at behest of Daphne (wheedling, whining, threatening, extortionate behest) after living there for two weeks. 

It consists of exactly one other person. Daphne. Because, let’s face it, the number of people he knew, liked, wasn’t currently awkwardly avoiding (ahem ahem – Mom), could stand to spend a few hours in the same room with without aid of pharmaceutical hallucinogens, and was willing to allow entrance into the Beast (without fear of never ever again being able to look them in the eyes because of the eternal _eternal_ shame that comes from a non-relative discovering you cohabitate with roaches, Or being bodily hauled out and made to return to the care of his mommy because obviously he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing and couldn’t be entrusted with the care of a self-sustaining plant much less his own life )…

Well, there was only one person who met all those requirements. 

And she still hasn’t learned a thing about diplomacy.

“Hey, Justin! What’s wrong with your closet?” 

Justin closes his eyes and contemplates an alternate universe where Daphne never finds the shambles that is his closet, one where the closet is possibly even no longer a shambles, a universe happy and serene with little chirping bluebirds flapping about. 

Hello bluebird. Chirp Chirp to you too. 

“Why’s it all …shrunken?” Her voice is muffled through what he imagines is the closet walls given her insistence upon that topic, and as she’s disappeared around his bedroom corner. He’s reluctant to check. 

So he does. 

Daphne’s standing on the threshold of his door, peering inside as though she’s never seen anything quite like this before and she really wishes she’d brought a camera. 

“Oh. That? Nothing’s wrong with it….” If you ignore the plaster chips stubbornly clinging to the _molding_ molding (a homonymic hovel, how hooking), and the fact the rack fell down two days into his move-in, so he had to stick it back with crazy glue because obviously wood glue is for wood not plaster. It fell down again, forty-five minutes later. “It’s an economical blend of efficiency and space management in a modern aesthetically appealing package.”

“Really. It looks more like your closet collapsed. Why’s everything so short?”

Because the closet collapsed. 

“I hate to break it to you, Daph, but I’m short. What’s the sense in trying to deceive everyone with racks too tall for me to reach in my own closet?” Deep breath and smile. Though to be honest? That’s never worked on Daphne either. 

“Yeah, you are,” she admits. _Thanks a lot Daphne_. “But come on, Santa’s elves would have to bend to reach these. It really looks like your closet collapsed…are you sure--”

“That’s a blatantly hyperbolic dramatization if I ever---”

“Oh My God, it did!” She lets out shrilly and punches him in the arm at the same time. Hard.

“Ow! Daphne.” He rubs his upper arm sourly, positive it’s going to bruise. It’s a filthy habit she picked up when they were kids and never dropped. He’s simply learned how to dodge over the years. Which he does, the next blow misses him by a few crucial inches. 

“It did! It collapsed! Your closet collapsed!” 

“Stop hitting me! It hurts. Besides, it didn’t. This is all completely deliberate.”

She stares at him disbelieving and they both glance around the room, silently taking in the systematic disarray. The ceiling bulges outward in a grossly convex threat of explosion. The walls crack and peel with chipped paint, what was beige now more a dusty off-gray. Along the baseboards seepage from – honestly, who knows where - - is cultivating mildew. As for the pole that runs through horizontally, the trick was even distribution, each item had to be carefully placed on the hanger and hung up based on its weight. Too much on either side causes bunching, bulging, then falling down. 

Daphne shakes her head. “Umm…I don’t think so. You live in a great big collapsible orange shack.” 

“First of all, no I don’t. Second, the proper term is Apricot Fire. The walls are not orange, they’re Apricot Fire.” 

She rolls her eyes singularly unimpressed. “I’d hate to tell you, but this place is the slums, Justin. No, no, I take it back, this place _aspires_ to be a slum. It dreams of the day it’ll be elevated to the status of slum.” 

“Oh fuck you, my apartment is the bomb.” 

“Yeah, a fucking blower-upper. I seriously hope they don’t make you pay rent. Why don’t you just let your mom help you find a place? I still don’t understand what the big deal is.”

“Sure. And while I’m at it let her worry about how I’m gonna pay for it, and who’s going to feed me, and clothe me and if I’m doing alright anno-Kinney, and pop over periodically because she’s conveniently ‘in the neighborhood’ to see how I’m handling my money and my schoolwork. I’m not a kid anymore, Daph, I don’t need to be treated like one.” 

With perfect timing, the rack waits for him to complete his rant to tremble alarmingly, halt, then crash the remaining fifteen inches to the floor, spilling Justin’s clothing everywhere. 

That’s one way to make a point. So Justin’s a liar, what else is new?

Daphne sighs and does that thing with her mouth that is such a mom thing it’s frightening. “Yeah, well, guess what, Justin? You better swallow your fucking pride before this place swallows you, that’s all I’m saying.” 

***+++***

Daphne leaves and it’s quiet again. Justin makes himself dinner (ham and cheese on white bread) which he eats standing up. He hasn’t bought a couch yet and his living room set consists of a single piece of seating that’s entirely too close to the floor for comfort. 

***+++***

_Today, 4:15 p.m. Beeeep_.

“Justin, Debbie told me you broke up with Brian? Are you okay, honey? Where are you staying? Please give me a call back. Love you.”

_To keep this message press 9, to erase this message press 3, to repeat this message press---_

_Message Erased.  
_

***+++***

He buys chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at the supermarket. Later he’ll pick out the cookie dough and bake it in his newly scrubbed oven, that’s like an entire meal. Dairy, fats and salt, protein, fiber, the vanilla counts as a vegetable. 

He turns down aisle 12 and picks up some maraschino cherries. There, fruit. 

Dinner is served. 

Brian would be appalled ---

Nothing.

***+++***

The first time it happens he’s still zipped up in his fall jacket, jeans and briefs pooled around his ankles taunt and stretched from spread thighs opening as wide as cotton and denim limitations allow. Everything’s like that, taunt and salty stretched. It feels vaguely ridiculous half bared, ass and cock and thighs the only naked parts of him. He’s even wearing leather gloves, for Christ sake, and a wool cap shoved low over his sweat misted forehead. Brian takes him from behind. Engulfs him in warmth. Arms encased in soft fabric wrap around him. Hard body-hot flesh rubs against his ass, pressing teasingly light against his, erect penis nudging between the meeting globes with not nearly enough pressure to do anything productive, no thin cover of latex separating his body from Brian’s. 

No. Not-Brian then. Brian wouldn’t take him raw, there’re only a few sacred rules, and sacred rule (the _Golden_ rule) number one is Not Without A Condom. Ever. 

So not Brian. Which is good, which is better, which doesn’t matter. He’s hard and it’s lasting finally. His cock is bobbing between his legs in anticipation, rod thick, velvet steel stiff, twitching and _hard_ and _staying_. 

God it’s back. 

He can’t help but let breathy moans spill from a slack jaw, eyes squeezed tight shut. 

Not-Brian smells like Brian and feels like Brian, lies like him too with his body making all kinds of promises Justin knows his mouth will take back in the morning. He won’t forgive him, but he won’t have to either because it was never okay, it was never acceptable and besides, this isn’t Brian really. 

Not-Brian pushes him open and fills him with a smooth graceful liquid thrust, long and slow, and in. 

Justin’s not sure where his hands are, there’s only those pinpoint locations of ass and cock and thighs, and neck where Not-Brian is leaning in and breathing against him, warm puffs of scotch rich breath fluttering over his ear. 

It’s too soon because it’s been too long. He’s reaching for completion with tense muscles and arched back, that special place where everything breaking apart leads to better things being put back together. It’s there. There. There-There. Attainable. 

Not-Brian says in Brian’s voice, “ _I love you, just not that much. Deal_.” and he comes. And _he_ comes. And it’s everything and nothing and no one cries. 

Shuddering Justin blinks his eyes open to darkness so thorough it’s a new world, a warm, lightless, void. Wakes alone and quiet, the only noise the sounds of his apartment creaking and his own heart thudding from the residuals of the disturbing dream.

His sheets are stuck to flushed prickly skin, moving up and down with him as he heaves in gulps of thick air. Looking down he peels them back and tentatively touches a limp, wet, sensitive penis. At least he knows everything still works down there. So not physiological. Just psychological. Great. 

***+++***

“We can either watch a movie or Law and Order,” Daphne says as she drapes herself languidly over her couch – the red and black one he refuses to sleep on. 

It’s funny how ever since he’s found his own place he seems to spend more time here. He might as well transfer rent.

“I think I’ve seen all your tapes, which Law and Order?”

But at least he has his own shower. 

“Either the one with the bitchy brunette, or the one with the cute cop. Or there’s CSI, cute cop and bitchy brunette, two for one sale.” 

A tiny little half bath thing, beige paint rusted and half peeling at the bottom making it virtually impossible to actually take a bath even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. Once he found a creature in there that his landlord insisted wasn’t anything to worry about, “silverfish” weren’t dangerous. Nothing that ugly could be harmless. He’s taken to wearing shower shoes. 

“Law and Order, bitchy brunette.” 

***+++***

Watching the sun set takes a really long time.

It sounds like such a romantic, wonderful idea, like something moonstruck lovers do together. It’s not. It takes forever. 

Positive point: his apartment has a good view --- and if it keeps crumbling away a bit at a time, he’s not even gonna need windows for that view soon. 

The sun keeps sinking, lower and lower, inch by excruciating inch. Practically like it’s not moving at all, bathing his apartment in light which bounces off the already garish color scheme and reflects a wincingly bright neon (vibrant neon) carrot color that stings to look at. 

This too has a positive side. It’s a reminder that the way things are going, he’s more likely to suffer retinal damage, go blind, tumble blindly into an end table which promptly collapses triggering a domino effect that culminates in the ceiling falling on his head, thereby causing his immediate death. It’s _far_ more likely that will happen than the scenario where he fades away quietly, a lovelorn victim of a failed relationship. 

Really, no one actually dies from a broken heart. A cardiac arrest, yeah, clogged arteries, burst vesicles, heart enlargement, sure. But bitter loneliness? Hell no. 

His life is…his life is okay. 

Growing up means being okay with being alone, right? 

And he has to grow up sometime, now is just as good a time as any.

 

***+++***

He misses Brian like a physical need.

***+++***

_You have one new message. Yesterday, 12:35 p.m. Beeeep._

“Justin, it’s Mom. I’m worried about you honey, Daphne says she’s seen the new place? If you told me you were looking for a place, I could have helped. Anyway, give me a call back. Love you. Molly says hi.”

_To keep this message press 9, to erase this message press 3, to repeat this message press---_

_Beeep._

_Message Erased._

_There are no new messages in your mailbox, to return to the main menu---_

***+++***

If he says he’s okay with being alone, does that actually count as being okay with being alone? And if so…surely he can not be alone anymore. Right? 

Part of being an adult is maintaining a stable committed relationship, right? He doesn’t have to be alone to enter a new phase of his Brian-free existence. 

It’s not a _requirement_. 

Besides, he’s a nineteen year old male, no one expects him to actually stay celibate. And dating is infinitely better than tricking. Right? 

Hmm… 

***+++***

_There are five new messages. First message, Friday, 2:47 p.m._

“Justin, it’s Mom again. Calling when you know no one is going to be home does not count as returning my call. If you don’t get me at home, you have the cell number. Call me _back_. Love you.” 

_Message Erased. Second message, Friday 3:19 p.m._

“Hey Justin, it’s me, how’s life in the collapsible orange? Okay, okay, I’m sorry, the collapsible ‘apricot fire’. I know, I’m a bitch. You love me anyway. Talked to your mom, she’s not royally pissed but I think she’s heading in that direction. But what do I know? I’m just the best friend with food benefits. Talk to you later.” 

_Message Erased. Third message, Yesterday 9:10 p.m._

“Sunshine, don’t forget you’re coming to dinner tomorrow. Brian’s bowing out for a business trip and Michael’s being a moody little shit and refusing to come. So you fucking better not back out too! Okay, sweetie, have a good day, Vic says hi.” 

_Message Erased. Fourth message, Today 2:15 a.m._

“……………………………………*Click*.”

_To keep this message press 9, to erase this message press 3, to repeat this message press 1._

_Beep_

“……………………………………*Click*.”

_To keep this message press 9, to erase this message press---_

_Message Saved. Fifth message, Today 4:10 p.m._

“It’s Mom. Call me back.” 

_Message Erased. There are no new messages._

***+++***

Dinner at Deb’s is uneventful. They have something that resembles Rigatoni, but actually isn’t. Michael indeed does not show up, Ted and Emmett are joined at the hip, Linds and Mel are …Linds and Mel, Vic is ---shock of all shocks – out on a date. Fucking couples. At least Debbie is loud, funnily unfunny and single as ever. 

The highlight is when Gus, typically quiet, watchful Gus, runs into the middle of the room does a half spin and shouts at the very top of his lungs: “Look! I can spell my name!” then promptly does so amidst coos of awe ….for the next half-hour. Straight. With Authority. 

He might be a Marcus-Peterson, but he does presentation like a Kinney. 

If Brian were here he’d ---

Nevermind. 

****+++***

He meets Nick at the library. 

They trade words like ‘forever’ and ‘monogamy’ and ‘true love’ and ‘instant connection’ over crème brule from Barnes and Nobles and white wine at Des Moines. 

There’s even talk of a commitment ceremony. Sometime in the future. Vast vast future. 

So it’s a little fast, back off Deb. True love knows no time constraints. 

Except the one where they end up lasting a week. Apparently things like ‘forever’ and ‘monogamy’ function under Einstein’s law of relativity. 

Justin finds Nick trading something a little more …cardinal than a soul match with a guy browsing the homoerotic literature section of _Shop on a Corner_. 

Fucking academic types. They’re so full of hypothetical theoretical bullshit they probably have to _envision_ their next crap before they take one. 

At least he got a week of decent free meals out of it.

And they fucked. And he came. With another person for the first time in months. Hallelujah a grand new time has arrived. 

***+++***

Donnie. The Park. Five days. Numbers exchanged with some fucker who sold hotdogs for a living. _Hotdogs_. 

Positive point: when Debbie asks where Donnie is – “Whatever happened to that cute little carrot top you were over the moon about, Sunshine? A week straight of Donnie this, Donnie that and then nothin’” – and Justin’s forced to regale her, Emmett, and Ted with the entire morbid embarrassment, Emmett has enough decorum to keep from making any comments about the Hotdog part. Okay fine, but they were at least tasteful. If Brian was there he would have ---

So anyway. 

The gang has shrunk from four to two. Michael is “still sulking,” according to Deb – “Over God knows what, but it’s driving me batshit. I know I didn’t want him with Ben in the beginning, and to be honest I’m still not thrilled over it but if I have to suffer through one more puppy-dog eyed, pouty lipped mope I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” 

And Brian hasn’t been around lately. Not that he’s noticed or anything. 

It does remind him that he needs to move the computer from Daphne’s to his own place soon. Brian went through all the trouble of mailing it (and he still can’t believe he remembered Daphne’s address) he might as well use it. 

***+++***

Jonathan, just Jon. And if the alliteration wasn’t bad enough (Justin and Jon) the tramp sets a new record: three _days_ before he’s caught with his tongue so far down – get this—a big _bosomed_ brunette, and his hands so far up _her_ dress it’s kind of hard to mistake what they’re doing for anything else. 

He’s been cheated on with a girl. A girl. 

Justin feels used.

And cheap. 

He doesn’t tell Daphne, Deb, or EmmettandTed. They’re a fucking new entity now, an Emmed, a Temmet. Couples are disgusting. 

***+++***

_12:32 p.m._

“Justin, it’s Mom. I came by your place but obviously I didn’t catch you. I assume no one was there. Call me back, alright? And if Molly says I’m sleeping again tell her to wake me up. Love you.” 

_Message Erased_

_5:12 p.m._

“Justin---”

_Message Erased_

_8:09 p.m._

“Jus--”

_Message Erased_

***+++***

He goes clubbing-- at this new place that doesn’t charge a cover fee if he wears a really tight outfit and smiles a little, and also has the additional appeal of being Brian-free -- and finds Robert. Bobby, a senior in high-school, with the big brown eyes and the dimple that flashes when he smiles, who isn’t quite so attractive with his bare ass waving in the air, while his lab partner (who knew Biology was _that_ hands on? — Mr. Steiner, you big liar.) high as shit and twice as horny fumbles around for his zipper in the near dark. 

This is too predictable to even get upset over anymore. Justin meets interesting guy, Justin gets cheated on. 

“Don’t bother getting dressed. I was just leaving.” 

He doesn’t say it loud enough for them to hear-- even if they weren’t too fucked up to recognize English at this point-- and he’s not surprised when no one goes chasing after him as he leaves. 

He doesn’t close the door on his way out. That’s not pettiness it’s justice. 

***+++***

There has to be a gay man in this city capable of fidelity. Seriously, he can’t be the only one in all of Pittsburgh who thinks it’s a decent idea. Look at Michael and B—

Hmm. Okay. Bad example. 

So he only knows sluts; that is not indicative of anything. 

***+++***

“Jesus Christ, Justin! You’ve turned into a big serial dater!” Daphne, later the same night his very first high-school boyfriend decides he needs to expand his horizons. Kids are so fickle. 

“I’m the unfortunate victim of dating morally ambiguous, lying, cheating bastards. I don’t need your bullshit too, Daphne. So shut up, I’m not a serial dater.” 

They’re sitting outside on the cold cement stoop of her building, it’s a chilly night and they’re both wearing jackets that have been demoted from winter coats recently. Justin’s puffing on a cigarette rhythmically, comforted by the steady inhale exhale as much as the nicotine. Daphne huddles beside him, her knees knocking slightly together because she always gets cold faster than him. She’s only out here because he is; there’s nowhere else he’d like to be and her place is too crowded, both roommates are home today. The cold doesn’t bother him. Justin was born for winter, born for ice and snow and crisp winds breathing over his face

She shivers a little and leans into him. “Remember when I suggested you should buy a cat?” 

“No,” he lies, stubbornly. 

“I still think you should. You really really should. They’re much better company than the trash you’ve been bringing home lately, and besides, this is becoming pitiful now. You’re probably exposing yourself to all types of diseases,” her face scrunches up on the last word, “and and … body lice. At least when a cat gets fleas you know where it’s been.” 

“Daphne,” he says pleasantly, breathing out a cloud of smoke, “remember when I told you to shut up?”

She leans against him harder, a full-body shiver running through them both, transferred from her to him. “No.” 

“I meant it. I really really meant it.” 

***+++***

“Justin, it’s Mom. This is getting ridiculous, the only way I actually know you’re alive is through Debbie and Daphne. I’m your _mother_ for fuck’s sake. ….Sorry. Sorry…call me back, okay? Now. Love, Mom.” 

_Message Erased_

***+++***

He’s stuck on a Robert fetish for two blissful subsequent weeks. There’s Robbie, Bobby, Bob, and the twins: Robert Alexander and Robert Anthony Douglass the II and III. He just fucks them though, so it’s not _exactly_ a relationship. 

Daphne doesn’t seem to quite understand this, and is still prompted to say, “You know, maybe you’re not ready to re-enter the dating world. Maybe you should give yourself time to get over Brian.” 

Which is such complete bullshit. “Fuck you, I’m over him. I’m so over him I’m under him.” 

She levels a look at him over a box of Chow Mein that’s as much amusement as total disbelief, a slight tilt to her left eyebrow, and a smirk twitching at the corner of her mouth. He needs to stop telling her things, really, only there’s no one else. 

“Actually,” she says all high and mighty in a faux superior tone, “you’re paraphrasing from Friends. I never realized how dirty those words were though. Maybe it’s a Brian thing…You know, anything you say in reference to Brian acquires a level of previously unattached sexual subtext.” She bats a discarded fortune cookie across to him with the end of her chopstick. “Sort of like adding ‘in bed’ to the end of a fortune.” 

He bats it back and it topples into her sweet and sour sauce, a little brown boat in a sea of red. “Daphne? If you don’t stop that line of thought immediately, I’m buying that fucking cat and replacing you with it.” 

She shrugs unconcerned. “Go ahead, but think about this, who’ll buy you Chinese food and let you vent over the cheating bastardly ways of this week’s cheating bastard, while you avoid the impoverished collapsible orange that is your apartment?”

She has a point. 

***+++***

Matthew Wesley Pear – ever since the Princess Bride he’s loved the name Wesley, how perfect is this? 5’11, dark blonde hair almost auburn that falls in golden waves across his perfect baby-smooth forehead. Huge, perfect light brown (sparkling hazel in some lights) doe eyes dusted with sinfully long lashes. He’s never exactly been into blondes – he is one, why would he _want_ one? – but Matt’s different. They meet outside Woody’s just as Justin is deciding accidentally bumping into Brian is too much of a risk for maybe – but then again maybe not—buying a drink. 

Arms wrap around him from behind, and for a moment he’s positive his decision is moot and he’s bumped into Brian anyway. A leather jacket rubs against his parka’d back, and a low voice breathes into his ear, “Where ya headed?” 

It’s kind of pathetic how such a dumb line sells him every time. But anyway. 

This time is _it_. This is _the_ time. Matt is _the_ one. 

Brian isn’t even a thought anymore. 

Less than that. He-who-Justin-cannot-remember, isn’t even a th--- You know what? Forget it. It doesn’t even matter. Matt is the one. 

***+++***

“Justin, don’t make me come over there. I know _where_ you work and _when_ , I’ll take some time off if I have to and I _will_ make a scene. You seem to have forgotten who taught _you_ how to make a scene. Molly sends her love.” 

_Message Erased_

***+++***

He knows the moment he hands over a copy of his keys that it’s a bad idea. Destiny, true-love, eternal commitment and soul-mate-ness aside, moving in together should be taken slowly. Slooooowly. Matt grins, snatches the keys from his hands, and tumbles him into bed. Too late now. He’s not sure because he hasn’t done this all that often, and the times he has have ended in …well, less than pleasantly in the same manner that every major war ended less than pleasantly, but he thinks it wouldn’t be conducive to everlasting approximated-marital bliss if he snatches them back. 

Briefly in the pause it takes for Matt to slide jeans over hips, past knees, off he thinks he might be going about this all wrong. This growing up, Brian-exorcism, new life thing. Because it feels a lot more like basking in misery than creating a new self. 

In the pause between entrance and the first thrust, he thinks it might be a little late for introspection. 

If not, he’s still kind of sick of living inside his own head. It never shuts up. 

***+++***

“……………*Click*”

_Message Saved_

***+++***

2 weeks. 

Justin realizes, keys dangling from tense fingers, that this is all Brian’s fault. 

Brian was his first. Brian was _the_ first. He set the precedent for all who followed.

Justin is still looking for another Brian. 

Oh, maybe not literally, not literally, but…subconsciously Justin is looking for someone like him. First love, last love, that sort of shit. 

Brian was first, in everything. First to take his virginity, first to take his heart, first to share his life and his goals and his home. First to give them all back. So maybe it isn’t so far fetched to think this is why his romantic life totally sucks ass (like a three dollar whore – pun totally intended) in the ‘love department’.

He’s still looking for someone like Brian. 

Someone confident and witty, with a big heart, a faster tongue, and gorgeous looks. 

Who, coincidentally or perhaps simply concurrently, also doesn’t know what the word “fidelity” means in a practical context, and who can’t keep his dick in his pants any longer than the time it takes the next willing hole to prance by. 

Glad that one is figured out. Hate to have wasted too long in an ignorant state of not-even-close-to-bliss. 

Great. Nice. 

Now, all he has to do is use that information and work with it. Analyze, Synthesize, and move on. 

That should be his fucking mantra. Analyze, Synthesize, Move On. 

“Get out,” Justin demands hoarsely. 

The trick is already moving, throwing on his clothes haphazardly, shooting terrified looks Justin’s way all the while. Matt is watching from the comforter, frantically wrapping himself in the thing around and around and … His eyes are huge, deep hazel orbs stretched wide, flushed cheeks feverish, red lips parted sucking in heavy gasps as his recent orgasm flutters away from him. 

God, he’s pretty. 

_If he doesn’t say anything_ , Justin promises himself, _I’ll kick him out tomorrow_. 

“Justin, this isn’t what it looks like.” 

_Well, there goes that_. 

“When I said get out, I meant you too.” 

“At least let me explain…”

“Explain what? What’s there to explain, Brian? How could you cheat on me in my own apartment? In my own fucking apartment! At least the others had enough _fucking_ RESPECT for me to keep it out of my _apartment_!”

Matt freezes, the incessant winding abruptly stopping, while Justin realizes what he’s said. 

Oh. God. 

“Did you just call me Brian?” Matt’s voice sounds strangled, pressed out through clenched teeth on a breath whose only true function was perhaps meant to be the expelling of carbon dioxide. 

There’s…nothing to say to that. Justin’s throat works miserably but no words come out. His lips feel numb, too heavy on his face, his tongue is dry in his mouth clicking the words, “get out,” loose from a resisting palate. 

As he walks away his footsteps are muffled and filtered through the rushing in his ears. 

He locks himself in his bathroom and waits for the sound of the front door slamming shut to reverberate through thin plaster walls. 

The rest of the night is spent sitting on the closed toilet seat staring blankly at his rusted tub, holding perfectly still because to do otherwise is to shake uncontrollably. 

***+++***

This latest blatant disregard for propriety forces him to ask the one question he’s always sorta wanted to know since the day (night really) his father gave him an ultimatum and then made good on it. 

_On bad days he thinks he’d like that moment back, one of many, and maybe in the end he wouldn’t have done anything differently…probably not, but he thinks…he thinks maybe he would have at least thought about it for a little longer._

And in order to do that, he has to talk to the one person who has the answer. So he sucks it up and does better than return her call. He shows up on her doorstep at three in the morning, soaking wet from the rain still pounding down around his ears and bathing the street. It’s quiet and it’s pretty with the street light reflecting off of steadily growing puddles against black asphalt. He would have drawn it, once upon a time. 

She opens the door on the third press of the doorbell in a thin blue robe and white cotton slippers. Nothing else. Her blonde hair flat to her scalp, her face pale without make-up (how long has it been since he’s seen her that way?), she looks thin and fragile and interestingly enough wide awake and panic flares as his thumb releases the smooth opaque button. 

How could she have just answered the door like that? With no hesitation or anything. Without even asking. 

_You can’t do that, Mom. What if it wasn’t me? What if someone else was at the door? You can’t just answer like that in a fucking bathrobe. It’s not safe. What about Molly? What about me? What would we do if anything ---_

“So he lives,” she sighs, not looking particularly surprised, nor like he woke her up except for the bed-wear. Her lips curl in a small moue of a frown. “I was beginning to wonder.”

He smiles a little sheepishly and whispers, “Hi, Mom,” his heart pounding hard inside his chest. How many more times is he going to have to do this? Quietly stand outside someone’s door as fear and terror and nausea sweep through him in burning anticipatory waves. 

“ ‘Hi, mom,’” she repeats, “ ‘Hi, mom’ Three months without a word and he says, ‘Hi, mom.’” 

He opens his mouth to --- what? Make an excuse, beg for forgiveness, blow it off, -- she interrupts him with a look he knows well enough to heed. 

Then she’s ushering him in, a firm grip around his shoulders directing and walking to the couch (the new one all white leather and suede finish) soggy jeans, soaked jacket, trailing rain in big snail-slow puddles and all. 

The frown stays, and the condo is bright newness and modern décor and plastic wrapped fine china so fragile that breathing on it risks breaking it, and nothing close to comfortable or his or _home_. But she’s wrapping a towel around his shoulders, pressing a cup of hot tea in his hands (the sleepy-time stuff mixed with condensed milk she used to make when he was five and was forced into his own room filled with corners for monsters and shadows for hiding creatures and under-the-bed spaces big enough to fit a axe murderer and no big people to hold onto when he woke up shivering and lonely and scared in the middle of his bed, then again when he was seven and Molly came along, a tiny red faced squealing little creature that made his parents say _No, Justin, not right now. Justin, later. Hang on a second, Justin, now’s not the time_. The sweet creamy stuff she laughed and called “Milk with a hint of tea” and kissed his forehead and hugged him tight and told him without words that everything was different but the same too), while simultaneously scrubbing at his hair with another towel, rough and firm and familiar. And it’s okay because he thinks, he really…kind of needs his mom right now. He never thinks to ask why she was up making comfort tea at three in the morning. 

When she’s finally done his hair is fuzzy and standing on his head and curling around his neck in cowlicks of duckling down. She sighs and pats it into place, fingers combing and twisting through the stuff. 

“You grew your hair,” she says smiling slightly. There’s a wistfulness in her tone that’s become familiar in the last few years – or at least he’s never noticed before he hit puberty. It always makes him simultaneously uncomfortable and irritated -- because there’s no reason for him to feel guilty and itchy and _stagnant_ when he hears that tone, but he does. 

“You look so grown up,” the smile stretches and he thinks maybe she doesn’t quite mean that because there’s wistfulness and then there’s _amusement_.

She rubs the towel through it one last time and orders, “Go change your clothes before you catch pneumonia.” One of the least possible productive things to think of right now is how parents always threaten you with pneumonia, never ‘or you’ll get a cold. Or you’ll starting sneezing and shivering uncontrollably. Or keep sitting in those wet things and they’ll get stuck to you. Or you’ll start growing your own bacteria and be known as the human fungus.’ Always pneumonia. 

“I didn’t bring anything with me.” 

“You still have things in your room.” The sentence, the _concept_ , rolls easily off her tongue but Justin knows better. There is no room of his in this house, nothing that’s truly _his_ , even the strangest of strangers could walk in and with the barest of cursory glances would see the difference between his mother’s pastel floral accented space, Molly’s purple princess paradise, and his…white walled, blue-bed spread showroom. The brief time he’d stayed there his mother had asked if he wanted to design it, but he’d known it was temporary, the pain of considering it anything but was too much to bear.

“I’m not a child anymore, Mother.” The words leave his mouth petulantly, child-like without consulting his brain. Force of habit at the moment because right now…being one doesn’t sound like such a bad deal. 

“Oh I beg to differ,” she replies evenly. “You are a child. _My_ child. I don’t care how old you get, Justin, you’re always going to be my child. You could be an eighty year old man shitting in his Depends--”

“Eww, gross.” 

“—and you would _still_ be that baby I brought home from the hospital, who didn’t sleep for the first week because he had colic.” 

Justin sinks into the couch, letting his head loll back against the white cushions. “I think you’ve been hanging out with Debbie too much, you never used to talk like that.”

“I never talked like that in front of _you_. You’re an ‘adult’ now,” she teases, “you can stand to hear your mother say ‘shit’. Now go change your clothes. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.” 

***+++***

When he manages to drag himself back down the stairs, warm and dry in new clothes, he finds her in the kitchen like she said she’d be. She’s sitting in a chair at the table ( a smaller, newer one than they had while he was growing up) cradling a cup of tea in the palms of her hands. She looks up immediately eyes asking, “So what’s going on?” Lips moving out the words, “Is this about Brian,” a little less questioning, a little more weary. 

“Why would it be about--” There’s that look again. Justin sighs and approaches the table, hovering over her like he never can when they’re both standing. 

“He never loved me. He loved to fuck me, but he never loved me.” 

If he wasn’t so depressed he’d be able to enjoy that same rebellious joy out of saying that to her now, that he got when he was seventeen (which was really only a year or so ago) and expounding over the many ways in which he enjoyed cock in his temporary therapist’s office, even though his mother has been pretty desensitized to the topic and the automatic wince is barely there. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think he did, probably still does.” What a strange world it is, his mother is more sure of that then he is. 

Justin sits across from her heavily. 

“At first I thought maybe it was the guilt. He blamed himself for my being--” In the hospital. Trapped and broken and useless in the hospital, with his brain patched up and his skull in melding pieces, and his memory shot, “--- in there, but it was a lie. It was all a lie, he just never cared enough.” 

“He was there, Justin.” She says it so calmly, quietly, that at first the significance of the statement is lost. It’s really the way she looks, all miserable and determined, miserably determined, that makes it sink in. 

“What?” 

“I…” She looks down, looks up, returns her gaze to her cup and her breath hitches, caught in her throat like it does when she’s getting ready to admit something she’d rather not. “I found out before you were released. He came nearly every night. Watched you through the window while you slept.”

Jesus. So long thinking he just didn’t care. Dying in the hospital and the two most important men in his life just didn’t care. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“Because I knew what would happen if I had. I knew I’d see that…that flash of hope spring to your eyes, and I knew you’d be willing to forgive him anything.” 

Fuck, she would have been right, he didn’t know and he still forgave Brian. What would he have done with the _hope_ of an admittance of love? Exactly what he’d done without, run with it and surmise surmise surmise. 

“Don’t expect me to apologize for that, Justin,” she says before he can demand just that. “You were an eighteen year old boy going through a horribly traumatic experience.” He looks away and she takes his chin in the palm of her hand to turn him back, force him to look at her. “I was doing what I thought was best for you.” 

“You had no right.” 

“No right? You’re my son, you were in my care, I had _every_ right.” 

He shakes his head rapidly from side to side; it’s all the energy he has for denial. Nothing more indignantly fierce is left in his body. “It was my life, I should have known, you should have told me.” 

“You were an eighteen year old _boy_ playing at being grown up, just learning how to keep yourself together. It wasn’t your responsibility to take care of him too. Not then.” 

She’s silent and he says nothing. So many times he wished to know this, the day it comes and ….and what. 

“Sweetheart,” she says softly after some time, “does it really even change anything?” 

Does it? Does it change anything at all? What’s different now that he knows? 

_You didn’t abandon me. You just made me think you did_.

“You never liked him,” he says changing the subject. 

She inclines he head slightly, the switch not going unnoticed. “No. I didn’t. Eventually I did come to respect him but Justin….as much as you were a child trying to be an adult, he was an adult trying to be a child. No parent wants to hear that’s the kind of person their son has fallen for, especially so young.” 

“Especially since Brian is so male,” he utters petulantly. He doesn’t mean it, it’s a trump card. You’re being unreasonable mother, it’s because I’m gay, isn’t it? That’s ridiculous, you wouldn’t say that if I were straight. Hey, Mom, you don’t like my older lover who fucked me while I was still teenager and living in your house, has a small child, and sleeps with anyone male that glances in his direction, because he’s a guy, right? 

She heaves a breath and pushes herself up, standing slowly. It might be his imagination but he feels bad when she wobbles slightly as she recedes to the opposite side of the kitchen silently. She sighs again and turns, bracing herself against the sink. When she meets his eyes she acknowledges without blinking, “There is that.” 

That. Is not what he’s expecting at all. “I thought you were over all that…I thought…”

I stupidly thought that wouldn’t matter anymore. 

“You want so many things for your children,” she says slowly from her position by the sink. “You want them to be happy and safe and loved and well off, and yes, accepted.” She pauses and looks down at her clasped hands entwined together tightly in front of her.

He watches them too, wondering when they became so wrinkled, when she picked up this habit of wringing them. 

“When you were three you could read an entire book all by yourself with maybe some help from me or Dad with the big words. You loved to do everything by yourself, you loved trying new things and usually you excelled at them, first time, right from the start. You were like a sponge you just soaked things up, reading at three, tying yours shoes at four, and these questions you used to have. All these questions you used to connect these gigantic ideas so the world fit.” She smiles a sad little smile that reaches her eyes in a nostalgic way. “I’ll never forget the time you said, ‘Mommy why does the stove tick before the fire comes on, how does electricity make it start, if I put gas in the light bulb could we cook up there?’ You scared me to death. But only partly because I was afraid you’d blow up the house by attempting to cook on the ceiling. The other part was a fear that you were too smart. You’d be too far ahead of your peers, they wouldn’t understand you, wouldn’t be able to relate to you and consequently you’d be an outcast. Socially shunned and turned away. And then you found Daphne and I stopped worrying so much.” 

“So what? You wish I was born dumber?” 

She shakes her head the way he shakes his head, as if every extra ounce of energy has gone into it and there’s nothing left to spare. “No,” she says, eyes shutting briefly, voice hitching with a pause in _that way_ again, “but it would have been easier if you weren’t so terribly bright. It’s the same with you being gay. It’d be easier if you weren’t. And you _want_ the easy things for your children, you want life to be easy for them.”

Finally, finally, his mother looks up, and the sadness the weariness he sees on her face is nothing compared to the fierce love that’s there too. The same love that caused her to leave her husband when he told her in not so many words, ‘the son that’s disappointed us both or our happy normal life, choose now’ the same love that’s always made her choose him. 

“I wouldn’t change you, baby, not for the world. I love who you are, I’m so proud of you. I’m so very proud I can call you my son. But for awhile…yes, I did…I do want. Don’t stay away so long. No matter what’s going on in your life, okay?” 

He can’t speak so instead he nods. 

“Good. Because next time I’m waiting a week, and then I’m humiliating you in front of everyone. Naked Baby pictures in huge 20 by 20 _full_ color fliers.”

He smiles knowing she means it. 

In the mess of things, he accidentally on purpose forgets to ask his question. _Mom, how did you know that Dad was the one? And now that you’ve given him back, and he’s returned us too, do you regret it? Do you think you made the wrong choice, or somewhere in there do you still love him like you first did?_

Like the last question the reason behind the answer won’t change the circumstances, and therefore doesn’t make any difference. _You didn’t abandon me. You just made me think you did. You weren’t pushed into your decision, you made a choice._

 

****+++****

It’s somehow easier after that. Different, smoother, like sludging your way through quicksand, struggling and struggling so long and still getting sucked down inch by careful inch and then it stops sucking and it’s regular sand again. Still difficult, still weighing you down, still making you sludge your way through, still having to work for it, but easier. It’s like that. 

And so he’s lonely. And so it’s quiet. And so he doesn’t have school, or a boyfriend, or a group of family/friends to hang out with anymore. But so what? Most of that, _all_ of that was a conscious decision _he_ made for himself. He can change it. 

He can get school back, there has to be loans or scholarships or something. Fuck his father and tax refund claims, the man hasn’t provided anything for him financially or otherwise in two years. And if he can’t get any loans or scholarships then he’ll audit, a class at a time. PIFA is about the information, right? Not the degree. This is fixable. 

And fuck the boyfriend. He doesn’t need a man in his life to be happy. This is better anyway. They weren’t working out. 

All the rest….all the rest he doesn’t even have to work to get back, he just has to stop being so damn self-pitying. No more hiding. 

It’s hard and it’s scary but in a way he’s been forging his life by himself for a lot longer than three months. Definitely before this last break, way before he chose Brian over his family, probably even before he knew anything about Liberty Avenue at all. 

Besides, introspection is boring. He needs to stop living in his head. 

****+++****

Three months roll by, during which life is calm. Serene. Okay. Not great but okay. The closest Justin has come to drama is vicarious enjoyment of the Ted and Emmett show. 

He’s…maybe not happy, but content. And that’s just as good for now.

Three months roll by. Then it starts again. With Michael.


End file.
